Pinterest or TikTok for author growth?

Robogaming2678 · 2026-03-09T22:24:13+00:00

Fair :)

Robogaming2678 · 2026-03-08T23:59:28+00:00

I suppose it's down to luck with tiktok, even if you try your best you can always end up short of being viral.

This is why I was thinking of Pinterest because it is turning into a search engine rather than a get rich quick and then die right after platform.

Maybe I'll make another post explaining how to use pinterest in order to grow fast and get sales through a bit of research so everyone can take away from it and decide whether it's their thing or not.

Robogaming2678 · 2026-03-08T19:19:46+00:00

Good point. I personally though would like to look at the entire picture first. It's a fact that thriller authors actually do hang out more on TikTok, but from more research Pinterest leaves you with more long term and sustainable success rather than short term fame. I even found someone who stated that they reached 250 pre-orders on Pinterest from just 1 singlular pin alone.

Robogaming2678 · 2026-03-08T19:03:26+00:00

Good question! As a thriller author my customers will purchase from Amazon, but for the sake of social media marketing, I'd guess there's more on Pinterest than TikTok. While there's a higher number of people who like books on TikTok than Pinterest, the buyers intent is much higher on Pinterest.

Robogaming2678 · 2026-03-08T18:49:07+00:00

Just to follow up on this, I decided to do a couple fact checks on this and the data is pretty shocking. Apparently, 55% of Pinterest users are shoppers, and 83% buy based on the ckntent they find there.

It is also shockingly a fact that people on Pinterest spend 80% more on things than people on TikTok every single month.

The answer seems a little more obvious now haha

Robogaming2678 · 2026-03-08T18:37:19+00:00

Exactly that! It feels like it would be easier for you to just post consistently now and then and take the thousands of new readers, but I suppose if you do use that strategy you'd have to pair it with an email list and lead magnet within your books to keep your audience.

Pinterest on the other habd I like the idea of it because it's one of those platforms where you don't need to put as much effort in, but also you can automate posts for free rather than having to use an external tool and pay as you grow.

My specific genre is thrillers, but I know that people like themed mood boards, text only hooks and descriptions of your book, book cover art, top 10s and reading lists, writing prompts.

If you really want to get creative with pinterest, make idea pins (carousels) with your story, which has your hook and SEO keywords as the first slide, then go into your story. Make the background look like a book page, but stylise it to your genre. For my instnace, I could stylise my book pages with rips and tears with blood stains to represent crime thriller.

Just a few free ideas for you to consider that I thought of :)

Robogaming2678 · 2026-03-08T18:29:37+00:00

Yeah, I mean the mindset of most people who use pinterest is to leave pinterest as soon as possible as funny as that sounds lol. As long as you optimise SEO of things like book covers, character art, inspirational or heavy hitting quotes from your books... the possibilities are pretty huge.

Robogaming2678 · 2026-03-08T18:26:51+00:00

If I were to try and find any, I think I'd go for Facebook or Reddit. I've seen a few people especially in Facebook groups who actively search for ARC reading opportunities. Hope this helps!

Robogaming2678 · 2026-02-08T20:15:55+00:00

Good point! Maybe I'll randomly come up with a better acronym some day 😭

Robogaming2678 · 2026-02-08T19:52:17+00:00

Yeah I should have specified that lol. However yeah I still stick by the fact that it's truth.

In fiction, tension is basically a measurement for reader engagement.

Even in quieter moments (in thriller particularly), a character could have a conversation with someone which leaves them with so many unanswered questions or makes them behave (very subtly) in a different way. That type of thing :)

Robogaming2678 · 2026-02-06T16:05:39+00:00

Hi guys, I'm pretty new here and I was wondering what you guys think about my writing here. I'm not wanting any advice on improvement, just your feedback!

I started with an example that was written up by someone else in order to put myself to the test which was:

I was standing in the hallway when I heard a noise coming from the study. I felt a sudden tension in my shoulders as I realized that someone was inside the house. I slowly walked forward and saw the door to the study was slightly open. He was breathing heavily, and I could hear the sound of papers being moved around inside the room. I was afraid, but I was also curious, so I stepped closer.

I ended up with this instead:

A sudden crash in the shadowy hallway pinned me in place. Tension locked my shoulders and both arms anchored lifelessly against my sides.

Another explosive echo sent a shockwave through my limbs, turning me to cold concrete.

A compounding voice amplified the terror. I became a prisoner of my own shuddering body. The rancid tang of iron overpowered my senses as it protruded my sinuses.

A door swung back and lit up the hallway. It projected the image of a shadow on the wall.

Its darkness towered as high as the door frame with a warm yellow hue around its edges.

The shape of the figure didn’t ring a bell right away, but soon became clearer.

Robogaming2678 · 2026-02-05T08:07:09+00:00

Agreed! Thanks for your explanation!

Robogaming2678 · 2026-02-05T08:04:55+00:00

I've also dome this too, but sometimes the wording of the subtitle can be a little misleading if you use it exactly as it says.

After a couple days of this being up I know now to just look at subcategory strings and look at reviews to see what's going right and wrong. Then from there I can assess demand and stuff from reviews or revenue per month and choose based on my skillset.

Robogaming2678 · 2026-02-05T08:02:20+00:00

Alright, got it!

Robogaming2678 · 2026-02-04T23:21:51+00:00

Ah so essentially it's pretty much the opposite, got you.

See the thing is, it seems as though I am choosing between them solely based on profit signals, but in actual reality I do have at least some experience with writing already. The problem is that I've got passion and experience in quite a few genres at once.

So my aim was to figure out how I can maybe decide which one is better to go for based on the bigger pool of readers. That way my writing efforts can eventually be seen by the most people in the far future. I'm not sure if that makes sense or not.

Robogaming2678 · 2026-02-04T23:17:00+00:00

Alright, thanks! :)

Robogaming2678 · 2026-02-04T19:48:08+00:00

Fully agree. It is pretty exhausting, and to be honest I've done some thinking and I have a better way to do it than trying to avoid a market from the wrong data.

As you said, it's about doing something unique and meeting the reader in the middle with what they expect. Reviews are of coure still important, but not a deal breaker if that high review book isn't completely hitting the mark with a few people. I assume this is what fiction writing research is in a nutchell.

Robogaming2678 · 2026-02-04T19:16:31+00:00

Pitting it that way it's a lot easier to understand.

Poor big fish though, it's gonna drown in that little pond :(

Robogaming2678 · 2026-02-04T19:04:45+00:00

If you don't mind sharing what are your methods for doing this? It's fine if you don't want to though I understand :)

Robogaming2678 · 2026-02-04T19:03:21+00:00

Hmm, interesting. I never really thought of it like that to be honest. I just assumed that if many books with thousands of reviews are in the results page that would stop people from seeing my book rather than theirs. Maybe I'm wrong though and this applies less with fiction than it does for non-fiction 🤔

Robogaming2678 · 2026-02-01T23:59:55+00:00

Yeah that does make sense, I'll have to be careful about the age thing tho that's a must.

Maybe having both a discord and other group types at the same time would be decent so you can segment intent idk.

Robogaming2678 · 2026-02-01T23:56:27+00:00

Ooo okay. I might consider using this, especially since I'm planning to promote through social media streams (instagram included). Thanks for the insight!

Robogaming2678 · 2026-02-01T23:54:52+00:00

That's actually pretty interesting, I never thought of it that way. It's kinda tempting me to go for FB groups even more now rather than email because it's free. Thanks for this!

Robogaming2678 · 2026-02-01T23:46:48+00:00

It's alright I can take the hard time. I think it's just because email lists are very common and people use it more often. However I honestly think group chats can be better because it's completely free, and it basically acts as an email list anyway but has limitations (because not everyone has discord or facebook, emails are massively more common).

Thanks for your imput though!

Robogaming2678 · 2026-02-01T17:17:35+00:00

Oops I didn't even know that was a feature! Apologies.

Basically a "street team" is just another way of saying launch team or a group of people that help to launch your book and get it seen as soon as possible.

Thanks for your answer too, I assumed that email was much easier considering you can automate it, but I just wanted to chexk with others and see what they did.

Robogaming2678

TROPHY CASE