AUDIBLE STUDIOS NOMINATED FOR 36 AUDIE AWARDS®
Samuel L. Jackson, Kenneth Branagh, Elijah Wood, and the Audible.com original
production METAtropolis: Cascadia all among annual industry prize nominees
NEWARK, N.J. – February 28, 2012 – Audible Studios, the production arm of Audible.com, the
world’s leading provider of digital spoken-word entertainment, secured a record 36 nominations for
the 2012 Audie Awards, which honor outstanding audiobooks and other spoken-word performances.
Winners will be announced by the Audio Publishers Association at the Audies Gala on June 5, 2012, at
the New York Historical Society in New York City.
“The captivating audiobook performances recognized this year represent the enormous investment
we’ve made in cultivating the art of performing literature,” said Audible.com founder and CEO Donald
Katz. “The impressive number of nominations speaks for itself, and the broad diversity of nominated
titles highlights the increasing breadth of artistic output that is popularizing the Audible listening
experience.”
The 36 nominations represent a diverse array of audio entertainment:
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, performed by Elijah Wood, and Heart of Darkness,
performed by Kenneth Branagh, highlight Audible’s embrace of the culture’s most gifted actors
and its repositioning of long-form digital audio programming as a mainstream entertainment
format.
Macbeth: A Novel and METAtropolis: Cascadia are based on original works commissioned
by Audible exclusively for audio performance; three of six finalists in the “Original Work”
category were Audible Studios productions.
The Land of Laughs, produced by Neil Gaiman for the Neil Gaiman Presents label at
Audible.com, is an example of the exciting content generated by the company’s ACX
(Audiobook Creation Exchange) initiative, which empowers audio rights holders to collaborate
with performers and audio studios to bring more audio titles to listeners.
Go the F**k to Sleep, performed by Samuel L. Jackson, is a short comedic piece that turned
into a massive overnight viral phenomenon.
The Darkest Surrender and Notorious are part of Audible’s longstanding production
partnership with Harlequin, which has produced nearly 650 audio titles.
Four of six audiobooks in the “Business/Educational” category were Audible Studios
productions, underscoring Audible’s genre focus and commitment to building strong categories
in audio.
With Audible Studios, Audible.com has become the largest producer of audiobooks in the world.
Audible, which invented and commercialized the first digital audio player in 1997, has been at the
forefront of the explosively growing audiobook download segment. In 2011, downloads by Audible
members increased by more than 40% over 2010, with individual members downloading an average
of more than 18 books over the course of a year. More than half of current Audible members are first-
time audiobook buyers.
To learn more about Audible’s forthcoming line of audiobooks featuring Hollywood’s biggest stars,
see here.
To learn more about ACX, see here.
The Audio Publishers Association’s release, along with a complete list of nominees, can be found here.
ABOUT AUDIBLE, INC.
Audible, Inc., an Amazon.com, Inc. subsidiary (NASDAQ:AMZN), is the leading provider of
premium digital spoken audio information and entertainment on the Internet, offering customers a new
way to enhance and enrich their lives every day. Audible’s mission is to establish literate listening
as a core tool for anyone seeking to be more productive, better informed, or more thoughtfully
entertained. Audible content, which includes more than 100,000 audio programs from more than 1,800
content providers that include leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters, entertainers, magazine and
newspaper publishers, and business information providers, is digitally downloaded and played back on
over 500 popular devices. Audible is also the preeminent provider of spoken-word audio products for
Apple’s iTunes® Store.
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MEDIA CONTACTS:
Matthew Thornton
Audible.com
973-820-0402
mthornton@audible.com
