I went to bed late a couple of times this week because of The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins. Great series — so far. I’m just getting to the meat of the second book (Catching Fire). I knew the games and themes in the series resembled the The Running Man, but couldn’t imagine why it was a best seller. “The Running Man” was a good movie, but I didn’t love it and post-apocalypse themed stories tend to be depressing. After finishing the first and digging into the second, I got my answer.

But I don’t think everyone would love it especially my mom. I’m curious to know what she’d think if she reads “The Hunger Games.”

Anyway, I accidentally learned the result of “The Hunger Games” when I was reading the synopsis of “Catching Fire” on Amazon’s page. (I looked at it to see if I wanted to read the series.) Despite knowing the result, the book gripped me to the end. Some of us may read the synopsis for an entire series to see if we want to read it or not. You can bet I’m not reading the synopsis for the final book, Mockingjay.

Thinking about this, I checked out the synopsis for “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” series. I’m at a disadvantage because I’ve read the whole series. After reading all three summaries, I believe they don’t contain spoilers. I tried to do the same with Harry Potter, but again I’ve read them all and may not be the best person to judge.

The synopsis from “The Hunger Games” also gives away a couple of things. However, these happen near the beginning of the book and not knowing these things beforehand adds to the surprise. Then it dawned on me to “Look inside” for the official blurb on the book’s jacket. The blurb revealed little compared to the “Editorial reviews” that I often refer to for the summary. I never had a problem with reading these until this happened.

The editorial reviews read like a summary not a review. A review gives an opinion. The two summaries only have one line giving an opinion and they reveal nothing about the plot. Did the rest of the summary need to reveal so much?

Amazon lists editorial reviews before any other content and doesn’t display the blurb anywhere on the page. The customer reviews appear further down the page. All this time, I saw them as summaries and rely on them to give me an idea of what the book is about without any spoilers. Not every book has a preview aka “Look inside,” so we have to rely on something to help us decide to read or not to read.

I checked Barnes and Noble’s summary on its website. It was almost identical to the blurb on the book jacket. Same for Borders’ website except it included an extra paragraph right before the blurb. I like Borders’ the best of the three.

So why does Amazon post editorial reviews instead? What do you think? Should Amazon post the blurb in place of editorial reviews and move the editorial reviews elsewhere? Have you ever read a blurb that contained too much info?

Authors can’t rely solely on their publishers to do the marketing for their book especially self-publishers. They need to take it in their own hands and the Internet simplifies the task. However, are authors making full use of the Internet? Plug Your Book! is a checklist complete with instructions so authors ensure they explore every potential book promotion resource.

The book’s introduction gives good advice on how to use this book. Make a copy of the table of contents and cross off each item as you do them or pass over them. To be thorough, read the book and decide which methods work best.

As a frequent book reviewer, I’ve seen successful authors rely on many of the tactics covered in this book. Book marketing goes beyond using Amazon, blogs and your own web site. Weber shows how to get more mileage from these resources and points to others like social networks, search engines, and tags.

Creating an account in MySpace may be obvious to most. Some tips Weber offers for making MySpace work for you including making the right friends, managing your top eight pictures, and paying extra attention to specific parts of the profile. He provides detailed advice so there’s no confusion on what to do.

The Internet makes it easy for authors and publishers to use other identities in posting positive book reviews and buying books to boost the book’s rank. Weber briefly addresses the ethics of marketing books online.

Authors and Internet pros who know about most of the resources covered in the book will benefit because of its organization, scannable contents, readability and conciseness. Plug Your Book! succeeds in ensuring the author makes the most of every opportunity and resource.

Title: Plug Your Book! Online Book Marketing for Authors
Author: Steve Weber
Publisher: Weber Books
ISBN: 0977240614
Date: February 1, 2007
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 208
Cover Price: USD: $24.99 Amazon: $18.99