3 Things I Did to Make Money with Pinterest and Live My Dreams

 

This is totally unusual for me.

But here goes …

What I mean is that I write romance novels and pretty much love shopping and travel and all that stuff. I don’t usually get into the whole thing about a laptop lifestyle and living your dreams.

I love that stuff as much as the next girl. Know what I’m saying?

But that’s not really me. But I’ve been able to leave the 9 to 5 and live my dream job of being a writer, so what the heck …

… Maybe I can pay it forward. Not the part about being a writer—not everyone wants that and in any case, I wouldn’t know where to start to help you. Writing is a crazy business, anyway.

I’m talking about the part about being successful outside of the 9 to 5. Writing and selling books is a tough business but I’ve made it work. No, I’m not on the New York Times Bestseller List but I pay the bills.

And what did it was … PINTEREST.

It’s a ridiculously great platform, underutilized and under-appreciated.

That means opportunity for you. And, listen, if you follow me here, you know I’m fascinated by Big Tech (and have written five romance novels featuring tech titans in them), but I’m not a techie in any way, shape or form.

When I started with no Pinterest profile, only a vague understanding of what the heck the thing was, and no design skills whatsoever. I still don’t and guess what, I have more than 300,000 impressions a month.

And, yup, most of the sales of my books come from … you guessed it … PINTEREST.

Boy, do I ever love Pinterest. And this not ancient history here people. I’ve only been active on Pinterest for three years. Three. Years.

So I just stumbled forward. If I could do it, you can do it. (I did take one course. It’s this one  here and it’s super simple. The guys who wrote Chicken Soup for the Soul used it and made a bajillion dollars. That’s where I head about it. I still use the techniques and hacks I learned from that course.)

So here are my best three pieces of advice on how to make money by focusing on Pinterest. Hope this helps you gain the freedom we all deserve.

1 | Pin on Pinterest Like Crazy; and Don’t Overthink It

Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration but not much. When I started, I just pinned a lot. My view was that every one of those little pins was an advertisement for my stuff.

So I just started creating pins consistently.

Later, I began to get better at by trying to understand my customer and providing value.

You’ll get better at it, too. But don’t get that paralysis by analysis thing going.

Just have fun and pin frequently and consistently at first. Repin freely and openly. Repin other people’s stuff is part of the culture on Pinterest. Slowly but surely, Pinterest will start serving up your pins to people and they’ll start clicking.

That’s a bewildering list of SEO tips and algorithms and all that stuff. It’s all well and fine. Blah, blah, blah. For me, it goes in one ear and out the other, for the most part.

If you’re all about dogs, then have dogs in the headline. The rest will take care of itself. Don’t overthink it. That’s my motto in life. I didn’t and have done more than alright on the platform.

So takeaway No. 1: Create fresh pins on a consistent basis with fresh images and text. Consistency will be rewarded. If you take nothing away from this post but one thing, let it be that you need to be consistent!

2 | Create Pretty Pins

We’re women and we like pretty things. That’s just how we roll. Guess what? Most of the people on Pinterest are women.

Don’t go nuts and die a thousand deaths on this one. You don’t have to go back to art school. I use Canva.com. It’s free and I love it.

Just about every top Pinterest person I’ve met on the platform uses Canva.

What I mean by pretty pin is that it should have nice font and clean, clear image. And stick to certain feminine colors.  They work super well on Pinterest. I’m talking…

• orange
• yellow
• red
• fuchsia
• pinks
• blush pink
• coral
• dusty rose

I break this rule but for you right now, stick with this. Pinterest is going to favor it and that’s good.

And for goodness sake, use the free Canva templates when you start. Your pins will look great and you’ll learn how to make these little buggers the right way right from the get-go.

3 |  Just Jump In

Today I have get more than 300,000 impressions per month.

I’ve met one person who gets 1.5 million per month and another incredible person who gets 2.2 million.

Heck, I’m puny compared to those monsters. But the thing we have in common is that we didn’t overthink it at the beginning. There was no grand strategy or paralysis by analysis. We just freakin’ jumped in.

Perfection, folks, is not on the menu. It’s just not. Just get it done. The platform is very forgiving. Believe me. No mistake exists on Pinterest that can’t be corrected–or that hasn’t been made.

Just create an account and get going. If you’re not sure where to start, I’ve already mentioned a course from which I got a lot of value. You can check out their video and I think they’ve got a sale or some sort of promotion going at the moment. Make sure to check.

But it isn’t required. What is required is you getting out of your comfort zone and creating some pins. Break this down to its simplest form. No pins; no nothing.

So Get It Done

Look, I’ve made all the mistakes. When I started I made pins of my book covers because I wanted people to go buy them. As stupid as it sounds (that’s me pulling out my hair by the way), I forgot to include the links in the pins where people could buy my books on Amazon.

So I got a big, fat nothing burger from all those pins for the first month. I wanted to cry.

I quit. I stopped pinning for about three months. I told myself I was writer NOT a marketer. And my books promptly collected dust and I lost my publishing deal. It’s the best thing that ever happened to me because it drove me back to Pinterest.

As I mentioned, I’m nowhere near the biggest or the best Pinterest pro out there. I’m just a writer. But I make a living writing books and about 75 percent of my income comes from traffic my Pinterest page drives to those books.

You could drive traffic to an affiliate offer or even Amazon. And you could make a great side hustle income or even a full-time income. I don’t know.

All I know is that it’s possible and I’m a living example.

So just get it done. Jump in and don’t quit. Good luck and have fun while you’re at it. Yeah, Pinterest can be fun and creative. (And if you’re in the mood for a good read, don’t forget to check out my kissing books.:)

>>> Here’s the link to the course I took. It is on sale or they’ve got some freebie thing going at the time of this writing. <<<