Melville House, the New York City indie press, has launched its first book trailer contest and is currently accepting submissions. Awards will be given for best big-budget trailer—for books released by major houses or trailers with budgets over five hundred dollars—best low-budget trailer, best cameo in a trailer, best performance by an author, and the "least likely to sell the book" trailer. Finalists for the Moby Awards, named for the press's book blog MobyLives, will be feted on May 20 at the posh Griffin cocktail lounge in New York City, in the company of publishing professionals and "surprise celebrity guests."
"Yes, that’s right: We will judge you," reads today's post on MobyLives. "Well, we’ll judge your book trailers, which one might consider reflections of you (and your work), whether you’re an author, editor, agent, publicist—whoever!" Panelists Megan Halpern, a publicist; Carolyn Kellogg of the Los Angeles Times blog Jacket Copy; Jason Boog of the blog GalleyCat; Troy Patterson of Slate; and Colin Robinson, publisher of OR Books, will select winners from among nominations—which can be made by anyone via a comment on the contest Web page—of videos produced between April 2009 and April 2010. A shortlist will be announced during awards week.
Also accepting entries to its book trailer contest for indie titles is ForeWord Reviews. The submission period closes at the end of this week.
The video below, promoting James Greer's novel The Failure (Akashic Books), is one of many trailers that have already been nominated for the Moby.