The Smart Bitch Book needs a Smart Bitch Book Videomo*. And who better to make us wet our pants with laughter than the collective brilliance of The Bitchery?
*You’re probably asking yourself, “Self, what the fuck is a videomo?” Well, the answer, Self, is that it’s a pastiche of “video” and “promo.” Why not use the words Book + Trailer? Because “book trailer” is trademarked to Sheila Clover English, CEO of Circle of Seven Productions. So, Videomo it is. Sounds like Tony Romo, only not so much a Dallas Cowboy. And we doubt that any promo videos will date Jessica Simpson, though one never knows.
This is probably one of the bigger contests we’ve run, so get ready for a lot of explanation. The nutshell: you make a promo video about our book, upload it to YouTube and alert us to its presence. We collect all the entries on our channel, and showcase as many of them as possible as part of our Friday Video collections. A panel of Extremely Erudite, Intelligent, and Awesome people will select the winner, and the winner gets a holy shit huge prize package.
What’s a holy shit huge prize package? Behold:
Teh Winnah of the Videomo Contest will receive:
An Amazon Kindle
A $100 Gift Certificate to Amazon or the bookstore of Teh Winnah’s choice
A Laptop skin featuring The Ladies, the glamorous icon of Smart Bitches Trashy Books
The people’s ovation and fame forever.
Second place will win:
$50 at Amazon or the bookstore of choice
An iPod skin featuring The Ladies, the glamorous icon of Smart Bitches Trashy Books
A smaller but still sizable portion of the people’s ovation and fame forever
Contest Stuff:
All entries must be uploaded to You Tube by Thursday, January 1, 2009, midnight EST. If you make a Videomo for us while hung over from New Year’s Eve? Super Awesome!
Please use whatever you’d like to create your Videomo, from live action to visual puns to really, really bad poetry. BUT PLEASE: do not use anything that’s copyrighted or the property of someone else because, dude. Not Cool. If your Videomo features items that are not free for your, and therefore our, usage, your entry will be disqualified.
Videos will be showcased on Smart Bitches as Friday Videos, and visitors to the site and our YouTube channel are more than welcome to vote on the videos themselves using YouTube’s rating and comment system.
Winner will be chosen the week of 9 February 2009, and the winners will be announced on or within 48 hours after 14 February 2009. Happy Valentine’s Day – you can make love to a Kindle (ow).
International entries are welcome. We ship anywhere, except the space station. Sorry, folks on Mir.
Other Stuff:
Whichever video we select as Teh Winner becomes property of Smart Bitches Trashy Books LLC for use all up and down the internet. We may tattoo it on our buxom selves, even. Who knows? But please do feel free to place a credit for yourself at the end of the Videomo. Srsly.
The winning Videomo might be featured on the web site of our publisher, bookstores, who knows. So go wild. You don’t know where this thing will end up.
Need help? We’ll make book promotional materials available to anyone who asks for them, and we can answer questions and provide a big honking high-res version of our cover as well. Just email us at sarah @ smartbitchestrashybooks.com or candy @ smartbitchestrashybooks.com, and put “Videomo” in the subject line.
We’re still finalizing the judging panel, but we’re looking to television and film production professionals, random people of awesomeness, and, of course, yours truly, the Smart Bitches, to select Teh Winnah. Our panel presently includes Jane from Dear Author, The Dynamic Duo behind RomanceNovel.tv, Marisa and Maria O’Neill, and Morgan Doremus from Miss Match Productions.
Any questions? Let us know. Have fun!
Beyond awesome. Good luck to all!
Totally awesome! Can’t wait for the entries! Wish I had the skills to enter.
“International entries are welcome. We ship anywhere, except the space station.”
But I have a feeling that at the moment a Kindle wouldn’t be much use to anyone outside the US, because it won’t work:
Considering I only discovered the magic of iMovie on my computer about two weeks ago, I’m not sure how smart it would be to unleash me on this contest. And yet. . .
The device itself will work in Europe, according to my research. The wireless may not. But one should be able to download and add books using the USB connection. There are a few options for download and transfer.
If only I had a video camera!
Well, since I am no where near qualified to even think of making a videomo (did someone copyright that I hope?), I will look forward to the submissions and voting.
Should be fun!
seeing that you are giving the winner a Kindle made me squeak. literally. out loud. it’s a good thing i have no roommates.
DAYUM i wish i was creative.
Thanks for enlightening me, Sarah. I wouldn’t have a clue how to put together a promotional video so I wasn’t worried on my own behalf. Obviously the clues I did have about the Kindle were misleading ones.
Yes. I used my Kindle all over Australia and New Zealand. All you can’t use is the wireless or access the Amazon store. Which is kind of half the allure of a Kindle, but still. Free ereader!
I have also heard about services that have started for small fees that will enable someone to manage purchase and download of files from the Amazon Kindle store through a third party in the US.
As for iMovie, the new 2008 version through iLife, I’ve used it, and it is incredibly simple to use.
It’s not that I don’t take every word written by the SBs as gospel……. but “book trailer” is trademarked? I had to google and yes of course you’re right…. but that’s just so …. Weird.
Good luck to all who enter.
It is indeed. It was trademarked back in the days before anyone knew what a “book trailer” was, so it wasn’t a common usage term. Thus, I make my own term! A really really silly one! Whee!
Ah to be creative and talented and actually understand technology!
*sigh*
Still, this promises to be, at the very least, highly entertaining.
SBSarah, you need to trademark videomo, srsly you do.
Yowza!!! A free e-reader! That’s, like, a big-time prize!
That’s so unbelievably cool I may have to figure out how to do a videomo. Which you all may have cause to deeply regret.
And “videomo” is a supercalifragiliticexpialidocious word.
I can’t believe I mis-spelled supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Even given that it’s not a real word, I missed a whole syllable.
Are authors eligible? Not that I need another way to procrastinate…
Wait, there’s a Smart Bitches YouTube channel? What’s it called? I must subscribe!
(Spam word: piece18. I gotta get me a piece of that!)
Okay, I’m done procrastinating but here’s my videomo. Now I’m gonna get to work.
Beyond Heaving Bosoms
Shiloh: absolutely. Authors are absolutely included.
Nekobawt: our YouTube channel, soon to be added to our links:
http://www.youtube.com/sbtbllc
Right now I just have a few of the Friday videos up in a playlist but stay tuned for more.
Hoo boy, with the sick talents in this group whipped to a free-Kindle-induced pitch, I can’t wait to see the outcome. Shudder of delicious fear.
What about “informative-romance-novel-companion trailer”?
Also I am super duper excited about this! If anyone wants to team up I have camera and editing experience the only thing I really need help with is costumes and sets!
I’m already getting grand ideas beyond my budget.. sigh..
Shiloh, your videomo was terrific! I loved the Mozart background. That gave it just the right touch of class. You did such a great job of presenting the cover snark.
Don’t even get me started on people trademarking popular terms. And just because someone pays 35 bucks to trademark a common phrase doesn’t mean that others can’t use it anymore. And good luck on that anyway since EVERYONE uses the term.
Thanks, Bev… I’m way too good at distracting myself and procrastinating. Way, way…wayyyyy too good…
If the term is trademarked, you simply capitalize it and add the ™ symbol so you would use it as: Book Trailerâ„¢
See how simple? I, too, wish I wasn’t technologically challenged (or imaginationally challenged for that matter) to participate. I have my own Book Trailerâ„¢ aka Videomoâ„¢ to work on in upcoming months.
Ha! I trademarked the term for you, Sarah! Shiloh, that one ruled! I can’t wait to see the entries roll in.
Oh gods… if only my entire imagination didn’t do a flop/sweat/choke/die when presented with shit like this!!!
Aaah! Amazing prize package… seems very Kindleiscious. However, I’m pretty happy (ok, very happy) reading on my iPhone… just figured out how to get it working today! BooksOnBoard has a large collection of iPhone-compatible Samhain titles (some of the titles here) with a pretty seamless download. I can’t wait to see all the VideoMos… if I weren’t so technologically challenged, I would make one for funzies 🙂
I might go so far as to say dangerously simple.
*Tucks the SYTYCD fan vid behind some other files.*
Shiloh, that was AWESOME! In fact, may I say, Bitchalicious. I can’t believe you just whipped that up!
LOL…Randi, I didn’t exactly whip it up… I downloaded images, picked music, made up the text images that were shown and then fed it into a program I use for making up quick and easy trailers.
As much as I’d love to claim tech genius, all I can claim is that I love ‘legit’ ways for killing time. This counted, right? 😉
Now i really wish I was talented enough to do this.
Kindle is out of stock and backordered until Feb or so. Hubby did get me the new Sony, but I am not sure I like it, so I was going to order the Kindle and compare them together. Now I have to wait, but I have until Jan 17 to return the Sony if I don’t like it. I may use it for the FL and CA trips and then return it and wait for the Kindle. If I don’t like that, I will stick with books.
And Amazon better not charge my card until it does ship!!
So I have a question: what if our Videomo uses music that is free for us to use under a Creative Commons license, but is not free for your use in promoting your book? Or am I wrong in thinking that that would be a commercial use?
captcha needs96—I needs a Kindle before I turn 96, when they’ll be obsolete
HEY this contest is biased.
You gotta have TALENT to enter.
that’s just unfair !! 😉
I can assure you I’m not asking that question. What’s the deal with the foul language lately?
Made it myself… Waddya mean you can tell?
~ Storm Grant
http://www.stormgrant.com/
And now the actual videomo link:
My videomo entry link:
Apparently, I can write, but I cannot read. I misread the instructions and posted my book trailer instead of making one for your book. Please to be ignoring. (Or deleting).
Sorry.
~ Stormy
Because I needed to chill and relax and just amuse myself…
I fiddled. It looks better.