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 ...

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 manag ...

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 C ...

, Brilliance, BBC 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.

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 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 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, Matthew Mather, 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 The Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album has been awarded since 1959. The award has had several minor name changes: * In 1959 the award was known as Best Performance, Documentary or Spoken Word * From 1960 to 1961 it was awarded as Best Perform ...

. 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 ...

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