Anne Hathaway, Claire Danes, Colin Firth, Diane Keaton, Dustin
Hoffman, Samuel L. Jackson and 2013 Best Spoken Word Album Grammy®
winner Janis Ian all among annual industry prize finalists
NEWARK, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 21, 2013--
Audible Studios, the production arm of Audible.com, has received 31
nominations for the 2013 Audie Awards, which honor outstanding
audiobooks and other spoken-word performances. Audible Studios finalists
featured in 18 different categories. Winners will be announced by the
Audio Publishers Association at the Audies Gala on May 30, 2013, in New
York City.
“We are so proud of all of the Audible Studios performances recognized
this year,” said Audible.com founder and CEO Donald Katz. “Our expanding
efforts to elevate the art of performing literature took form with the
launch of our “A-List Collection,” narrated by some of Hollywood’s most
talented actors; six of these audiobooks have received nominations this
year. But as we continue to seek to embrace professional actors of all
stripes, we are just as excited that Scott Aiello, a recent Juilliard
graduate whom we met through one of Audible’s many on-campus training
sessions at theater schools, is also among this year’s Audie nominees.”
Among the highlights of this year’s Audie finalists for Audible Studios:
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Six titles from Audible’s “A-List Collection,” which showcases
tour-de-force audio performances from Hollywood’s biggest stars, are
finalists: A Rage in Harlem, performed by Samuel L. Jackson; The
Handmaid’s Tale, performed by Claire Danes; Slouching Towards
Bethlehem, performed by Diane Keaton; The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,
performed by Anne Hathaway; Being There, performed by Dustin
Hoffman; and The End of the Affair, performed by Colin Firth,
which is a finalist in two separate categories. This is the second
consecutive year that Jackson has been honored for a performance in an
Audible Studios production.
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Society’s Child, singer-songwriter Janis Ian’s bravura audio
performance of her acclaimed memoir, recently won the Grammy Award for
Best Spoken Word Album, besting competition in the category that
included First Lady Michelle Obama, former President Bill Clinton,
Ellen DeGeneres and Rachel Maddow. Society’s Child, in which
Ian plays every song she references in telling her story, is a
finalist in the “Narration by Author or Authors” category.
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Sex and God at Yale, in contention in the “Nonfiction”
category, is narrated by Scott Aiello, who auditioned for Audible as
part of Audible’s ongoing outreach to top American drama schools.
Aiello, a 2012 Juilliard graduate, has since recorded seven books for
Audible Studios.
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Four of Audible’s 31 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. ACX recently announced a tenfold increase in audiobook
production in 2012 versus its debut year.
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Three titles personally selected and produced by Neil Gaiman on ACX as
part of his “Neil Gaiman Presents” label were chosen as finalists.
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Audible’s production of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which returns to
the novel’s original storytelling structure with the help of an
all-star cast of narrating talent, including Alan Cumming, Tim Curry,
Simon Vance, Katherine Kellgren, Graeme Malcolm, Simon Prebble and
Marc Vietor, is recognized in two separate categories.
Audible, which invented and commercialized the first digital audio
player in 1997, has been at the forefront of the explosively growing
audiobook download segment. With Audible Studios, Audible.com has become
the largest producer of audiobooks in the world.
Audible is the exclusive 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://www.audiopub.org/press/Audies2013PR.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 comprises more than 100,000 audio programs from more than 1,800
content providers, including 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.

Source: Audible, Inc.
Audible.com
Matthew Thornton, 973-820-0402
mthornton@audible.com