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Blackstone Audio is one of the largest independent
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 ...
publishers in the United States, offering over 30,000 audiobooks.
The company is based in
Ashland, Oregon
Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States. It lies along Interstate 5 approximately 16 miles (26 km) north of the California border and near the south end of the Rogue Valley. The city's population was 21,360 at the 2020 cen ...
with five in-house recording studios. Blackstone distributes directly to consumers via their subscription
e-commerce
E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain manageme ...
site, Downpour.com, and to the library market with titles from Blackstone, MacMillan,
Hachette Hachette may refer to:
* Hachette (surname)
* Hachette (publisher), a French publisher, the imprint of Lagardère Publishing
** Hachette Book Group, the American subsidiary
** Hachette Distribution Services, the distribution arm
See also
* Hachett ...
,
HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...
,
Brilliance,
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
and
Disney Press
Disney Publishing Worldwide (DPW), formerly known as The Disney Publishing Group and Buena Vista Publishing Group, is the publishing subsidiary of Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. Its imprints inclu ...
.
Blackstone has made deals with other audiobook companies where Blackstone manufactures physical CD & MP3 CD format media and distributes them to retail and library locations. Labels under this program include
Naxos AudioBooks and
Recorded Books
Recorded Books is an audiobook imprint of RBMedia, a publishing company with operations in countries globally. Recorded Books was formerly an independent audiobook company before being purchased and re-organized under RBMedia, where it is now an ...
.
Corporate history
Blackstone was founded in 1987 by Craig and Michelle Black, originally under the name Classics on Tape. The company later assumed the name Blackstone, taken from an English literary magazine. The company's location in Ashland, Oregon was influenced by the proximity of the
Oregon Shakespeare Festival
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) is a regional repertory theatre in Ashland, Oregon, United States, founded in 1935 by Angus L. Bowmer. The Festival now offers matinee and evening performances of a wide range of classic and contemporary pla ...
, which Blackstone used as a pool for voice actors.
In August 2012, Blackstone launched an audiobook e-commerce / subscription website, Downpour.com, providing Blackstone audio titles as well as other publisher's titles to the retail market. In January 2013 the company was acquired by
AudioGO
AudioGO (formerly BBC Audiobooks) was a publisher of audiobooks and a range of spoken word and large-print titles. It was majority owned by AudioGO Ltd, and minority owned by BBC Worldwide. It was formed in 2010, when AudioGO purchased a majori ...
for an undisclosed sum. Ten months later, in October of that year, AudioGO went bankrupt and sold Blackstone and its other US operations back to the Black family, with the UK arm of AudioGO ceasing business operations as it sought a buyer or investor.
In 2017 they bought Auburn, Calif., direct-to-consumer audiobook retailer, AudioEditions.
In January 2019, they announced a deal to exclusively distribute
Naxos AudioBooks physical CD titles. And in September 2019 added Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Audio.
In November 2015, they expanded with Blackstone Publishing, a new imprint devoted to print and e-books. They launched with its first original hardcover, ''The Blood Flag'', a thriller by
James W. Huston, and rolled out paperback and e-book editions of four western novels.
In August 2020, Blackstone announced a deal with
Recorded Books
Recorded Books is an audiobook imprint of RBMedia, a publishing company with operations in countries globally. Recorded Books was formerly an independent audiobook company before being purchased and re-organized under RBMedia, where it is now an ...
to exclusively manufacture RB's 14,000+ audiobook titles on physical media (CD & MP3) and distribute to retail and library locations in North America.
Authors
Authors published by Blackstone Publishing include
John Shirley
John Shirley (born February 10, 1953) is an American writer, primarily of fantasy, science fiction, dark street fiction, westerns, and songwriting. He has also written one historical novel, a western about Wyatt Earp, ''Wyatt in Wichita'', and ...
,
Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card (born August 24, 1951) is an American writer known best for his science fiction works. He is the first and (as of 2022) only person to win both a Hugo Award and a Nebula Award in consecutive years, winning both awards for both ...
,
Meg Gardiner
Meg is a feminine given name, often a short form of Megatron, Megan, Megumi (Japanese), etc. It may refer to:
People
*Meg (singer), a Japanese singer
*Meg Cabot (born 1967), American author of romantic and paranormal fiction
* Meg Burton Cahill ( ...
,
Matthew Mather
Matthew Mather (September 28, 1969September 13, 2022) was a Canadian writer of science fiction. His books have been translated into eighteen languages and sold around the world. He was also a self-publishing author of his works, as well as being ...
, and
John Altman. In 2018, Blackstone acquired the North American unabridged rights for print/e-book and world rights for audio to
James Clavell's catalog.
Awards
In December 2011, Blackstone Audio's production of ''
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
'' at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival was nominated for a
Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album. In 2014 the company won two
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 ...
.
See also
*
List of companies based in Oregon
This is a list of companies based in Oregon. Oregon is the ninth largest by area and the 27th most populous of the 50 United States. The gross domestic product (GDP) of Oregon in 2010 was $168.6 billion; it is the United States's 26th wealthies ...
References
External links
*
Official company library website{{Authority control
1987 establishments in Oregon
Audiobook companies and organizations
Companies based in Ashland, Oregon
Privately held companies based in Oregon
Publishing companies established in 1987