To be a contestant on Lincoln’s first-ever reality show, you don’t need to sing like an idol, dance like a star or lose 150 pounds.

You’ve simply got to be a master of self-promotion.

Live video auditions will be held Thursday and Friday at the Nebraska Bookstore for the reality show “Top Affiliate Challenge,” which pits business-savvy contestants against one another in the real-life marketing world.  

TAC will feature three teams of four online marketing contestants, each led by an online marketing guru.

The teams will compete to promote and sell Lincoln products and businesses on the Internet.  And the site, www.topaffiliatechallenge.com, will chronicle the contest.

Filming starts in July, and the show will run exclusively on the Web, at www.topaffiliatechallenge.com, later that month. Producers expect the show to carry about a million regular viewers.

“And you can get on the show even if you don’t know a thing about marketing,” said Thor Schrock, a local businessman and the brain behind the show.  Schrock was the second runner-up in the Web’s first reality show, “The Next Internet Millionaire.”

“We’re genuinely looking for somebody who is interesting and passionate,” Schrock said, “who has strong opinions and believes in themselves.”

The tryouts at the Nebraska Bookstore won’t grill auditioners with questions about marketing terminlogy. The audition is more of a personality test, Schrock said. Interviewers will ask you to talk about yourself, essentially.

“Basically,” Schrock said, “you want to be a character. Don’t be boring.”

Schrock spoke to the Journal Star over the phone while he was in Orlando, conducting the first live auditions for the show.

And in case you can’t make the the auditions on either day, you can produce your own video interview and post it on the Top Affiliate Web site.

Once the video interviews start to filter in, contestants can promote themselves, trying to nab votes from friends, family or just strangers.

The 10 contestants with the highest scores will go onto the final show. And two additional contestants will be determined at the producers’ discretion.

Micah Mertes can be reached at mmertes@journalstar.com or 473-7395.