31 Audible Studios Productions Named as Finalists for 2013 Audie Awards®

NEWARK, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

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:

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Three titles personally selected and produced by Neil Gaiman on ACX as part of his “Neil Gaiman Presents” label were chosen as finalists.
• 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 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.