Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Using Pinterest for Story Inspiration (+ a Free Book!) by Liwen Y. Ho

Have you discovered the amazing world of Pinterest yet? If so, you probably (like me) spend a little too much time there. If you haven't—well, let's just say, be prepared to have your mind blown. ;)


Pinterest is THE place for inspiration. It's like a one-stop virtual window shopping experience at the most expansive and colorful mall. Looking to redecorate your living room? Type the phrase into the search field and find everything you never knew you needed to know about the best white paint colors. Need a recipe for a homemade face mask? You'll find a dozen or more in a matter of minutes (this list only uses two ingredients per recipe)! Love to DIY? Welcome to your new happy place (check out this page!). And the best thing about Pinterest is that once you set up an account, you can easily save the pins you want so you can refer to them later.

You may be wondering how Pinterest relates to writing? I recently discovered that authors use it to create inspiration boards for their books. What's an inspiration board? Basically, a collection of pins that give you an inside look at a story. I tried my hand at creating one for my book, A Spoonful Of Spice.

This story is a workplace romance so I have a pin of "20 geeky finds for your cubicle", another one about the rise of women in tech, and one for homemade pumpkin spice latte, my main character's favorite drink. There are also pictures of the city it takes place in (San Francisco) and the cafe my characters frequent (or how I imagine it to look like), and a Rubix cube (you'll have to read the story to find out why that's included!). I had so much fun finding pins to go with this story. Before I knew it, I had 26 pins on the board! I hope you'll check it out and let me know what you think of using inspiration boards for books. 



If the board piqued your curiosity about the book and you'd like to read it, you can get it for free on Amazon.com through May 19th!



And be sure to check out the Pinterest account for Sweet Romance Reads (click HERE)! We have boards of all the authors' books by genre in one convenient place. Follow us there!


Liwen Y. Ho is an Amazon bestselling author of contemporary romance, both sweet and inspirational. A marriage and family therapist in her pre-author life, she enjoys creating realistic characters and helping them find their happily-ever-afters. She lives in California with her techie husband and their two munchkins, and blogs about life as a recovering perfectionist.

She has written three novellas in the Taking Chances series and also three short stories in the Seasons of Love series (the last one will be available this summer).



She'd love to hear from you! Find her online here:



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7 comments:

  1. I use Pinterest for all of my stories, too, Liwen. I love your covers, BTW!

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    1. Aw thanks, Josie! I'll have to check out your Pinterest account. :)

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  2. Liwen, I love Pinterest, but I have to confess, I'm a bit confused on how to use it properly. Thanks for sharing these ways.

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  3. I agree with Mary Alford. I'm confused about how to use Pinterest too! But you've inspired me to give it a better try. It's now on my list of things to do.

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    1. Give it a go, Cindy! It's fun (maybe too much fun) once you get going.

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  4. Great post, Liwen! I tend to use Pinterest as more of a bookmarks option than anything else. Maybe I'll do this for my next book and see if it helps with the writing process. Great ideas!

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