Title Photo Contest: Years ago when I published a magazine in Europe, I launched a photo contest to find the best image for a magazine cover.
I was overwhelmed with contributions and the happy winner of the first prize received a round-trip transatlantic flight ticket.
At Pinterest.com you can post photos that showcase places you write about, events your book has covered, or people you describe in your book.
Each Pin allows for a description and a link to the original story. Therefore, you can quickly connect an audience with your book’s story and future plans for other books, all via photo Pin.
And certainly a publisher, self-publisher or author could post book covers, images from inside the book(s) and create a contest around it. If the book is not yet published and you even don’t have a cover decided – why not post several cover versions and let the visitors at Pinterest.com choose the most liked? Or a video contest, inviting users to create a new trailer for your book? To give them an idea about your book, make a link to your blog or website for more information, so they get an idea about the content and at the same time get interested in your work.
Beside Pinterest, you should also post your contest on Google+, Chime.in, Tumblr or on Facebook, have a link on Twitter, and post it on every social media site, you are involved with. If you have friends who are on other sites, they can post it for you there too. Facebook’s encourages it even on their website: “Contests for Fan Pages enables companies & agencies to easily create & launch branded contests within minutes on Facebook Fan Pages. The following contest formats are available: photo contests, video contests, design contests, logo contests, essay-based contests.”
Make sure you don’t let your contest drag on too long, maximum 4 weeks. Offer a real great first prize and some for the 2nd and 3rd winner. Allow the contest participants to vote to choose the winner, which keeps the audience interacting with one another and engaged long after each person has submitted their entry. Use Google+, Facebook, Chime.in, Pinterest, Tumblr and Twitter to promote the winner.