28 Audible Productions Named as Finalists for 2015 Audie Awards®

Audible.com’s two production arms, Audible Studios and ACX, received 28 nominations for the 2015 Audie Awards, which honor outstanding audiobooks and other spoken-word performances. Audible finalists feature in 20 different categories. Winners will be announced by the Audio Publishers Association at the Audies Gala on May 28, 2015, in New York City.

“We are extremely proud of the wide range of high-quality productions that have been recognized this year,” said Audible EVP and Publisher Beth Anderson. “Having three titles named as finalists in the “Original Work” category for the second year in a row is particularly gratifying as we continue to strive to create innovative, imaginative projects that appeal to both new and veteran listeners.”

Among the highlights of this year’s Audie finalists for Audible:

• Golden Globe Award winner Michael C. Hall’s authoritative performance of Truman Capote’s iconic novella, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, in the “Classic” category.
• Janis Ian and a full cast in the “Multi-voiced Performance” category for Stars: Original Stories Based on the Songs of Janis Ian. Ian won her second Grammy Award for the narration of her autobiography, Society’s Child, in 2013. Society’s Child was produced by Audible Studios.
• Jeffrey Tambor’s interview, available exclusively in audio, in Transparent: Behind the Scenes with Jeffrey Tambor, which delivers the inside scoop on the Amazon Original Series, the winner of two Golden Globes in 2015.
• Wil Wheaton and Amber Benson for their dual interpretations of John Scalzi’s Lock In in the “Science Fiction” category. Because the gender of the Lock In’s narrator is ambiguous, Audible Studios offered listeners two editions of Scalzi’s audiobook, one read by each actor.
• Hamlet, Prince of Denmark: A Novel, a production that takes Shakespeare’s original into unexpected realms and reinvents the traditional story for both new audiences and old. The audiobook is narrated by The Hobbit’s Richard Armitage, who is also a finalist in the “Solo Narration: Male” category for this performance. Hamlet is one of three Audible Studios productions selected as finalists in the “Original Work” category.
• Two of Audible’s 28 finalists this year were produced and/or distributed via the Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX), an online audio rights marketplace and production platform launched by Audible in 2011. Close to 30,000 audio titles have been made available via ACX since launch.
• The Legend of Drizzt: The Collected Stories, featuring an all-star cast including Ice-T, Wil Wheaton, Al Yankovic, David Duchovny, Felicia Day and more, is nominated in the “Short Stories/Collections” category. The audiobook was produced to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons.

Audible invented and commercialized the first digital audio player in 1997, and has since been at the forefront of the explosively growing audiobook download segment. In 2014, listeners around the world downloaded 1.2 billion hours of audio from Audible.com outlets; Audible members downloaded an average of more than 17 books over the course of the year. More than half of current Audible members are first-time audiobook buyers. With Audible Studios and ACX, Audible.com is the largest producer of audiobooks in the world.

Audible is the preeminent provider of downloadable audiobooks to Apple’s iTunes store, which means that customers can access these finalists as well as tens of thousands of other award-winning audio titles at iTunes.

The Audio Publishers Association’s release, along with a complete list of nominees, can be found here:
http://audiopub.org/Audies15/2015_Audie_Awards_Release.pdf

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 includes more than 180,000 audio programs from leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters, entertainers, magazine and newspaper publishers, and business information providers. Audible is also the preeminent provider of spoken-word audio products for Apple’s iTunes® Store.