Book Trailer Contest

Lights, camera, action! In this contest you can create a book trailer for your novel, just like a movie trailer. Use text, images, music - you can add whatever you want to grab your viewer’s attention to read your book. Prizes include points and badges! Read through all the information before submitting.


Rules and Guidelines
* The following rules are mandatory for all participants. *

• Time limit for your trailer is a max. of 3 minutes.
• Entries are due at the end of the day on the 15th of August.
• You are allowed to use pictures, gifs and videos as long as it does not relate to yourself. Internet Safety has to be taken into account.
  Please check out the YWS rules and Internet Safety rules before starting.
• If you use art from the internet, please make sure to credit the creators whenever possible, and make sure not to use it if they don't allow reposts.
  See the Plagiarism Rules.
• The rating is all 16 and under; that means *no mature scenes, *no excessive gore / violence, * and for other TW’s (swearing, etc.) please provide a warning in your post or at the beginning of your trailer. Do take the Rating Rules into account.

Criteria & Prizes
The judges will look at your creativity, originality and quality, engagingness (Teaser Effect), timing, and adherence to the rules. The judging panel consists of your lovely Gen.Lit Crew.

1st Place: 400 points
2nd Place: 300 points
3rd Place: 200 points

All participants will also receive the book trailer badge!


Submitting your end result

• Double check the rules & guidelines.
• Sign off with your username (not your real name).
• Add a link to your video (e.g. youtube) or just the video itself in the post is also allowed (e.g. imgur). If you'd like to embed your video in your post, you can use the following code:

  CodeSelect all

  [media]link here[/media]

• And that's it!

Sample Book trailers
Check out the fabulous book trailers from the previous contest for some inspiration: Book Trailer Contest

Good luck and have fun!

Demons In Tokyo book teaser! I know there's probably not a lot of people participating since there's so much going on, but I got an itch and decided to make a little teaser.

warnings
EPILEPSY WARNING, Slight Blood.

DEMONS IN TOKYO | Book Teaser

Music by: Sewerslvt & some audio used from Dead Kennedys

~Submitted by goodolnoah

Hello, lovely people!

Roxanne is going to be away for a couple of days, and so they've asked for my help to wrap up this contest. If you have any questions related to this thread, please ask here or redirect them to me now on my wall or via PM- however you feel comfortable.

@goodolnoah thank you for participating! I see engagement has been low otherwise so I'll be tagging some people who might be interested- based on this year's CampNovMo, the previous year's book trailer contest participants, and some active & creative novel writers I know in general. No pressure, consider this a friendly nudge! I'm sure GenLit crew would really appreciate the participation. Plus it's fun, so what are you waiting for?

If you guys happen to know any one else who might want to participate in something like this, please feel free to tag them in this thread too!

Spoiler

@creeperfeverdreams @TheRebel2007 @NovemberCrow @ToastK @Smetana @Kaia @alliyah @Corvid @Omni @Ventomology @Spearmint @redhood @avimoon @SylvanusGrace @looseleaf @romanticchemist @soundofmind @keystrings @Raindeer @Leya @TinkerTwaggy @Silvern @cherie @LadyMysterio @serrodyne @rubbersoul @Snoink @FarDusk @inksthewriter @ScarlettFire @dragonight9 @CherryScriptAMK @RatHat @noridori @velvetcatsz @ehawthorne @Tikaya

Here's my entry for the contest -



The trailer is for an incomplete YWS project that I might never get myself to finish, but you can find the already published chapters here: Portfolio folder- Together in Fall

Spoiler

Credits

I don't own any of the pictures or videos used, they belong to their rightful creaters.
Songtrack: Memories by Tunetank (sped up to 1.5X)

Upon the request of some members willing to participate, the deadline has been extended up to 15th August. To accommodate all time zones, I'll be closing submissions on the 16th instead. This is going to be the final deadline, as judging will begin soon after. If you were hoping to participate but cannot get your entry in by then, please reach out to me for special consideration, and I'll see what I can do about making an exception. We hope to get the results announced by the end of the month, thank you everyone for your patience!

While I was shamelessly promoting this contest to encourage participation, I came across a situation- most users don't know how to make a trailer. It's a valid reason for not being able to participate, but one with an easy fix! Today, I'll be sharing the ultimate guide to make book trailers from the scratch for everyone who doesn't know how to get started. I hope this will be especially useful to participants from this and coming years, everytime this contest shall make a comeback. Without further ado, let's get started!

1. Apps- For mine, I used one from the playstore called 'Inshot'. It's convenient to use, and let's you include photos, videos, music recordings and transitions. Most of the features are available in the free version, with some of them unlocking after you watch an ad. Though it isn't all that complicated to work, I mainly chose it because I was already familiar with the system. For most users, I'd recommend Canva. It's just as user friendly and good as Inshot, if not more. Plus I see a lot of YWS members use it, so a lot of you might be familiar with it already.

2. Photos / Videos-

There are a lot of ways to go about it! If you like drawing and are confident in it, using your original hand or digital drawings is very much encouraged. Here are a few examples for such creative trailers:
Trailer MV | My Roommate is Suspicious by @ToastK [Rating: 16+ (mild psychological themes. Btw there's no blood, only red markers)]
Dawn of D.R.U. Book Trailer for YWS by @goodolnoah
[TW: Cartoonish depictions of blood, FLASHING IMAGES, Possible overstim]
DEMONS IN TOKYO | Book Teaser by @goodolnoah
[ TW: EPILEPSY WARNING, Slight Blood]

But not everyone's an artist, and that's perfectly okay! You can record random video clips by yourself of scenes that can be taken in context, if the prospect of a video shooting interests you. You keep it original, and make it fun! But please avoid recording your face and make sure to not include any identifiable information. Internet Safety always comes first! Here's a sample trailer from last year:
I knew- trailer by @Kaia [Rating: 16+, TW: suicide, needles, insulin abuse (nothing explicit shown for any of these topics)]

If your storyline is too peculiar though or you just aren't comfortable or skillful enough for these two ways, picking up relevant video clips or images from the internet is fair game! You can range it from minimum to going all out- just try to add credits wherever you can. Here are some examples, both quite different in their execution so you get a better idea towards which one you want to lean:
BOOK TRAILER VIDEO LINK: TENDING OUR HOUSEFIRES by @alliyah [CW: fire mention Make sure your sound is on for best viewing experience]
Trailer- 'Together in Fall' by @AlexWrites

3. Idea & Mystery- What does a trailer have to be about? Any novel of yours in progress / completed! The story and characters should be original, and it's even better if it's for a YWS published novel or a current year CampNovMo project.
About the technicalities- how much do I reveal? Completely upto you! Imagine your novel got turned into a movie and that's what the trailer represents. You can keep it vague by philosophical narration, introduce all the main characters, tease the plot, or summarise the entire story!

4. My own process- Personally, I chose the laziest if not the fastest route, for my trailer. I don't really draw and shooting the trailer in my disturbed room wasn't a good idea really. I had a definite picture in my head and so I looked up gifs for related scenes and some main character shots to bring the thing to life. I wrote and synced the narration and recorded it myself. Gifs are easy to handle and optimise, and give a cinematic feel if you've picked the right one. I used a website called ezgif and combined all the clips in the app and added transitions and subtitles to finish things off.

5. Background music- If you know how to compose and would like to for this trailer, be my guest! If not though, feel free to include whatever music you'd like, as long as you credit the artist clearly. For searching some that fit to your theme, try searching YouTube with the vibe you're going for, like I searched 'fall background music' and you'll find some free to use music quite easily.

6. Posting video- YouTube or any online video hosting website are fine, you can even use [media] bb code for convenience as it opens a window in the post itself. The viewer no longer needs to even open the link! Personally, I use vimeo (an online video hosting website)

There's one more cool idea that I saw @alliyah use! If you've published your work on YWS already, you can quote some things YWS members have said in their reviews to it, kinda like how critics and newspaper editors rate movies, something like 'It's the start of an era', 'Tender, heartwarming and shattering- it's the whole package'.

I believe that's about it! Let me know if I missed anything. If you have some tips of your own, feel free to share in the thread! @bambibeckett, I believe this could be of help.

So, I have learned that video editing is not for me... much respect to those who do it XD

Anyways, here's my attempt (just for fun, not eligible for prizes bc I'll probably be one of the judges) =P All images, music, etc. from Canva's free assets.

https://imgur.com/IU6lm1S

Hi, here is my entry. There's a typo where i mispelt devastation and it's bugging me but it's uploaded now and i'm too lazy to fix it!

The song was made by me, but all clips are from other media and are credited at the end.

TW for blood & zombies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4-72TLaRdE

Welp, i had zero plans for making this, but after looking at the limited entries, i cooked something up this morning. (I like mint will also prob not be eligible to win, but hopefully more people can join)

TW: self unaliving

I think this is how I'm supposed to submit? If I misunderstood please let me know and I will resubmit as appropriate.

Here is my book teaser for Hollow Born!

https://youtu.be/yHbF8Sb0ZnA

Yes, @bambibeckett, your entry has now been accepted. Thank you for participating!

Hey, here's a book trailer for a novel idea I've been thinking of for a while.
I k I'm in the middle of Prime Target, but I'm taking a research break cuz I don't know enough on the topic, so i need a writing project for the next month or so.

https://canva.link/njuc86suu9ei067

Designed on Canva obvi

Was not at all planning to do this but got excited and spent the last two hours working on this XDD I'll rate it E even though the actual work is 16+ and rated M. The trailer itself does not have anything graphic or worrisome :]

TW: Sirens/ambulance

https://canva.link/3rz6x6m87rmxznj

trailer entry is coming soon, promise! right on the nose

Contest Entry: Stormworks, adapted from a videogame, into a book, and now, into a movie trailer, filmed in the game!

Plot: Dr. Felix Richter, a marine scientist, and Lucas Campbell, a SAR operative, are sent to investigate a marine anomaly in the Scottish Isles. However, Stormworks Co., the drilling company that operates in these waters, has other ideas. With corporate mercenaries on their tail, and knowledgeable ship nerd that they rescue as help, can they expose this great conspiracy and bring the newly formed Democratic Republic of Scotland to justice before time runs out? A Thrilling Tale of Corporate Espionage.

@AlexWrites hope i'm not too late!



Every single thing within this trailer was filmed in the game Stormworks (highly recommended for sciency and engineering people. extremely addicting), which my book is based on, in a span of around 5 days. Because of how limited the camera tool was, there are a lot of weird angles that I had to try in my best to make, which is why there aren't many action shots.

Unfortunately, during the export, the quality was downscaled to 720p from YouTube. Also, while I was filming this trailer, my laptop died completely and lost most of the remaining of my recording files, so I have finished the rest of the trailer using the footage that I had already exported. you'll notice lag in some scenes because my computer was on its way outand couple of repeated scenes towards the end because I ran out of b-roll to use. Still, I hope you'll find it relatively entertaining and intriguing. The original final cut totaled around 50 minutes before cutting, was around 10 minutes after cutting, and after losing the files, I had about 3 and a half minutes remaining. Enjoy!