The Audio Publishers Association (APA) is the first and only not-for-profit trade organization of the

audiobook An audiobook (or a talking book) is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are abridgements. Spoken audio has been available in sc ...

industry in the United States. Its mission is to "advocate the common, collective business interests of audio publishers." Membership is open to "audio publishing companies and allied suppliers, distributors, and retailers of spoken word products and allied fields related to the production, distribution and sale of audiobooks." Activities include national consumer surveys, gathering of industry statistics, trade-show exhibits, a newsletter and an annual conference. The APA was founded in May 1986, when five to nine audiobook publishers joined together to form the organization initially to address the need for industry statistics, such as sales and member numbers. The founders met for the first time in New Orleans at

BookExpo America BookExpo America (commonly referred to within the book publishing industry as BEA) was an annual book trade fair in the United States. BEA is almost always held in a major city over four days in late May and/or early June. Nearly all significant ...

. They included Newman Communications, Warner Bros. Audio,

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...

Bantam Doubleday Dell Doubleday is an American publishing company. It was founded as the Doubleday & McClure Company in 1897 and was the largest in the United States by 1947. It published the work of mostly U.S. authors under a number of imprints and distributed th ...

, and

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

. The first APA president was Seth Gershel who was also Simon & Schuster's director of sales. In 1994, the APA officially established the term "audiobook" as the industry standard. In 1996, APA founded the

Audie Awards The Audie Awards (, rhymes with "gaudy"; abbreviated from ''audiobook''), or simply the Audies, are awards for achievement in spoken word, particularly audiobook narration and audiodrama performance, published in the United States of America. They ...

, which '' AudioFile'' magazine called the "Oscars of the audiobook industry".

References

External links

*{{Official website, https://www.audiopub.org/ 1986 establishments in the United States Audiobook companies and organizations Trade associations based in the United States