Contestants should create a trailer (no more than 1 to 3 minutes in length) and submit it before April 30th. The entries will be judged on the following criteria: creativity, originality, and how well the video can be used as a marketing tool.

Here’s more from the announcement: “Trailers (1-3 minutes in length) should try and take advantage of the Savannah setting while incorporating aspects of the city that are present in the story. The iconic cover shot of the Forsyth Park Fountain at night must be incorporated into each video as well links to the author’s website and Facebook page.”

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Who is your best literary friend? In the book trailer embedded above, three pairs of literary friends talk about their relationships. The interviews include Nate Silver and Arikia Milikan; Kate Bolick and Daniel Smith; and Jenny 8. Lee and Eric Lee. 

The trailer promotes Friendfluence: The Surprising Ways Friends Make Us Who We Are by Carlin Flora Here’s more about the book: 

Discover the unexpected ways friends influence our personalities, choices, emotions and even physical health in this fun and compelling examination of friendship, based on the latest scientific research and ever-relatable anecdotes. Friendfluence surveys online-only pals, friend break-ups, the power of social networks, envy and the dark side of amiable ties, and many varieties of friendship. Told with warmth, scientific rigor, and a dash of humor, Friendfluence not only illuminates and interprets the science but draws on clinical psychology and philosophy to help readers evaluate and navigate their own important friendships.

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Mulholland Books has released a slick book trailer for comic book writer and author Warren Ellis‘ new book, Gun Machine.

Author and actor Wil Wheaton narrated the trailer, Jim Batt directed and Ben Templesmith drew the illustrations. Without actors or expensive location shoots, the trailer conveys the surreal scene that inspired the story.

We’ve embedded the trailer above–what do you think?

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To promote her new memoir, author and journalist Stephanie LaCava worked with filmmakers Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman to make her book trailer.

Joost directed the indie hit Catfish, and turned “An Extraordinary Theory of Objects: A Memoir of an Outsider in Paris trailer into a candle-lit mix of animation, video and spooky narration.

We’ve embedded the video above–what do you think?

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The literary world mourned the passing of Jan Berenstain this year, but a new book trailer (video embedded above) features the co-creator of the Berenstain Bears talking about a new book.

After listening to some advice from their then-editor Theodor Seuss Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss), the husband-and-wife writing duo Stan and Jan Berenstain wrote a picture book about penguins. The manuscript for Nothing Ever Happens in the South Pole was “put on the back burner” for decades, but HarperCollins released it this year to celebrate The Berenstain Bears‘ 50th anniversary.

The video features Jan and her son Mike Berenstain (who helped to illustrate the project) discussing the book.

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In an interesting twist, a new book trailer from The Onion spends more time telling you how to read a book than it does showing you the book.

All the parents in the GalleyCat audience can relate to The Book Bjorn, a fake infomercial for a sling to help you carry an oversized copy of The Onion Book Of Known Knowledge.

Check it out: “Replete with an astonishing assemblage of facts, illustrations, maps, charts, threats, blood and additional fees to edify even the most simple-minded book-buyer, The Onion Book Of Known Knowledge is packed with valuable information–such as the life stages of an Aunt; places to kill one’s self in Utica, New York; and the dimensions of a female bucket, or ‘pail.’ With more than 1,500 entries spanning all 27 letters of the alphabet, The Onion Book Of Known Knowledge must be purchased immediately to avoid the sting of eternal ignorance.” (Via Little, Brown and Co.)

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Novelist Philip Pullman returns to bookshelves and libraries in November 12th with Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version.

To prepare, the author of The Golden Compass narrated a brief animated book trailer revealing his version of Little Red Riding Hood.  The paper illustrations in the video were made by Cheong-ah Hwang and the animation was created by Matthew Young. Here’s more about the book:

Pullman, one of the most accomplished authors of our time, makes us fall in love all over again with the immortal tales of the Brothers Grimm. Pullman retells his fifty favorites, from much-loved stories like “Cinderella” and “Rumpelstiltskin,” “Rapunzel” and “Hansel and Gretel” to lesser-known treasures like “The Three Snake Leaves,” “Godfather Death” and “The Girl with No Hands.” At  the end of each tale he offers a brief personal commentary, opening a window on the sources of the tales, the various forms they’ve taken over the centuries and their everlasting appeal.”

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Real life galley cats star in the book trailer embedded above, promoting the release of  I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems By Cats.

The poems were written by Francesco Marciuliano, the storyteller behind the syndicated Sally Forth comic strip. Chronicle Books brought the poems to life with voiceover and videos of some cute cats. Check it out:

Cat lovers will laugh out loud at the quirkiness of their feline friends with these insightful and curious poems from the singular minds of housecats. In this hilarious book of tongue-in-cheek poetry, the author of the internationally syndicated comic strip Sally Forth helps cats unlock their creative potential and explain their odd behavior to ignorant humans. With titles like “Who Is That on Your Lap?,” “This Is My Chair,” “Kneel Before Me,” “Nudge,” and “Some of My Best Friends Are Dogs,” the poems collected in I Could Pee on This perfectly capture the inner workings of the cat psyche. With photos of the cat authors throughout, this whimsical volume reveals kitties at their wackiest, and most exasperating (but always lovable).

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To promote its latest title, Abrams picked some adorable six-week-old puppies to star in the book trailer (video embedded above).

Here’s more about the book: “Puppyhood showcases adorable puppies in life-size photographs taken at six weeks old. The book itself is oversize at 13 by 11 inches, allowing enough space to bring each of these little ones to life. Twenty-five breeds are captured in engaging photographs, showing all the details that make puppies so irresistible, from their pink bellies to their tiny teeth, soft ears, and oversize paws. The book features the most popular breeds, including the French bulldog, Labrador, golden retriever, and Parson Russell Terrier.” (Via Bibliophalic)

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Web savvy authors have found new readers with book trailers. But what happens when your book gets translated and you want readers in France, Japan and Germany to pick up your foreign editions?

Now, thanks to a YouTube update, you can easily add translations to your book trailer that is already on YouTube. It’s a fairly straightforward process and doesn’t require video formatting or tech know how. If you can use YouTube, you can do this–start by making a caption track for your video. YouTube explains the next steps in this blog post:

Select “Request translation” in the YouTube Video Manager, choose the languages you’d like to translate into, and click “Next.” We’ll create caption translation documents that you can now invite anyone to help translate, or you can translate yourself. To translate the captions yourself, select the language, and it’ll open up the caption translation document in the Google Translator Toolkit editor to help your translate faster … To give you context on the captions, we’ve also embedded the YouTube video in the editor so you can watch as you translate. For several languages we’ll provide first draft of the translation using Google’s machine translation technology. We’ll also provide preview of what the translated caption looks like on the video so you can make sure the translated captions fit.

(Via AppNewser).

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We caught up with filmmaker Jamie Bradshaw to talk about building the campaign for his upcoming film, Branded–a film that comes out tomorrow. Bradshaw explained how he used San Diego Comic-Con, potato chips, QR codes and movie trailers to introduce readers to his first film.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview: “We are actually getting a really great response [to QR codes]. A lot of people are feeling empowered to use them. We are using more of them than I think anybody has ever used before (that’s what they’re saying to us). There are a hundred QR codes embedded throughout the trailers and the poster for the film. And they are all live and take you to different subversive content that is all part of the labyrinthine universe of this story.”

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Goldberg also talked about how he brought his short story, “Remaindered,” to Kindle and film–offering cautionary advice for anybody thinking about investing in a book trailer.

Press play below to listen. Here’s an excerpt from the interview: “For the most part, it makes me cringe from head to toe. I look at some of these book trailers from some big name authors and I can’t help but think: ‘Are you out of your mind? Why don’t you just go to the bathroom, take whatever cash you have in your pockets and flush it down that toilet?’ They are amateurish. They are nothing but slideshows with bad stock photos, too much text and creepy music. They are all the same and they aren’t effective sales tools.”

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Random House UK has released a book trailer for the Wool series by Hugh Howey, a formerly self-published science fiction series set in a dystopian future. We’ve embedded the trailer above–what do you think?

Director Ridley Scott and producer Steve Zaillian acquired the film rights to Wool earlier this year–. You can read an early draft of Wool at this link. The former yacht captain published Wool in July 2011, and has since written four more books in the series.

If you are already a fan of the books, Howey will give away proof copies of the novels. Here’s more about the giveaway: “Five individual books. WOOL spelled across the spine. A wrapper. A new chapter nobody has ever read before (chapter 13 in book 2). All this will be yours; it’ll be free; and I’ll even sign each of the five books before bubble-wrapping them and shipping them to your home.”

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In his new book trailer (embedded above), author Andy Laties staged a Godzilla and King Kong-style battle between the founders of Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

The action-packed video is for the upcoming book, Rebel Bookseller: Why Indie Businesses Represent Everything You Want To Fight for, from Free Speech To Buying Local To Building Communities. An illustrated Jeff Bezos starred as Amazilla and  Len Riggio played Barnes Kong.  Rebecca Migdal directed and illustrated the trailer.

Here’s the plot of the trailer: “Barnes Kong is on a rampage! The simian chain bookstore monster could go on stomping on independent bookstores and kidnapping dead authors forever, but the fearsome Amazilla has other plans: he wants in on the action. As the two battle with their laser e-readers, they destroy every public institution in sight. Can the Rebel Bookseller save the day, rescue Emily Dickinson and bring back a community of books?”

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Want to make a cool book trailer? Check out Chronicle Books’ YouTube page to get ideas. The company’s videos are so catchy that YouTube itself is featuring the publisher as part of its corporate video demo series.

In the “It’s Easy to Make Great YouTube Videos” video (embedded above) features Chronicle’s associate marketing director Albee Dalbotten. In the video, she explains Chronicle’s approach, “we don’t necessarily set out to make a video that’s going to go viral. Our goal is always to give someone some sense of intrigue, where they want to find out more.”

Still, the publisher has managed to have a number of videos that have caught on. For example, “Boo: The Life of the World’s Cutest Dog,” a video about a dog that writes books, has been viewed more than 800,000 times.

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