Richard Armitage’s 5th Audie Nomination for Romeo & Juliet
Previous nominations were for David Copperfield (2017); Classic Love Poems (2016); Hamlet (2015); and Venetia (2010).
I love listening to books. It's a great way to take in literature. So, I'm excited to announce finalists for the 2018 Audie Award for Original Work! Congrats! #Audies2018 pic.twitter.com/0BpUCHitPF
— Paula Poundstone (@paulapoundstone) February 6, 2018
Me + Richard Armitage 
Wow. Four consecutive nominations. It kind of made me a little bit suspicious (I mean, I think RA is a top narrator, and well deserves any accolade, but surely there must be other narrators, too.) and I just looked into how the Audies are actually judged. (Not sure whether you already discussed this in a previous post?) Got a reply from AudioFileMagazine on Twitter with a link to a post. https://goodereader.com/blog/audiobooks/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-2018-audie-awards So the finalists are judged on quality, not revenues or popularity on Twitter… The criteria are actually quite sound. However, to take part in the competition, producers have to pay in order to submit their production – which limits the field somewhat. In that sense, I am wondering how representative such an award can actually be?
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I don’t remember if I ever posted about it, but I did look this up when Classic Loves poems was nominated because I could not figure out why it was nominated. There’s an intermediate step, too, where the Audible editors have their own internal “awards” program and he “wins” those consistently as well. Audible clearly wants him to win and thinks he can or they wouldn’t keep up with this.
In terms of representativeness, they’re the only game in town, really. They’re the Oscars of the audiobook world. If you win a narration award this is the one you want to win. But everyone knows that these competitions are not solely merit-based. I also think the perceived prestige or significance of the project is an important as the narrator in winning. (I correctly predicted the winner in his category last year iirc). This year my prediction is that Handmaid’s Tale will win.
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Audible is definitely pushing him. No complaint, of course.
I didn’t realise that the Audies are the Oscars of the audio book scene. Fair enough. And good on all the finalists. That sounds prestigious. (Although I still find any competition that requires the exchange of money slightly dubious. It’s not quite a level playing field.)
As for the winners this year, no idea. I am not an audio book listener, but judging on the basis of the general exposure that A Handmaid’s Tale has received on the back of the Netflix series, I believe you could be right.
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That’s pretty standard practice in a lot of very prestigious competitions. Pulitzer Prize has an entry fee, so does the National Book Awards, iirc, the Jewish Book Awards have one, too, and those are just three I remember. Otherwise they’d be so flooded with entries they’d never be able to judge.
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I was just looking at the Man Booker — only publishers can submit entries, the number they can submit is limited based on various criteria, and they have to submit 8 copies of each book. So that’s a kind of unofficial entry fee right there.
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oh — the other thing is that Audible is the big name in the publishing game and that has to play a role. I think people take their stuff more seriously. Like — although Venetia is my favorite of the Heyer narrations, I don’t know that it’s necessarily better than the others. Naxos (for whom he originally did those titles) is a huge name in early music recording but not in audibooks.
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That could well be. Audible certainly has the money to attract big names for their audio projects, too, so they naturally hog a lot of the spotlight.
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I am excited about this. Richard unequivocally, 100% deserves this. It WAS a wonderful read.
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I haven’t listened to it. (shrugs) I’m glad he’s nominated but frankly, IMO both Handmaid’s Tale and Nevertheless She Persisted have better chances of winning.
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There should be a category for solo narrators who do all the voices its not fair to be up against 26 narrators imo.
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There is a category for best male narrator, but he was not nominated in it this time around (I forget about other years).
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[…] was Armitage’s fifth nom and Hewson’s […]
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Richard Armitage (and David Hewson) finally win their Audie | Me + Richard Armitage said this on June 1, 2018 at 1:39 am |
[…] In 2018, Armitage won his first Audie (along with David Hewson) after being nominated in 2010, 2015, 2016 and 2017. […]
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Richard Armitage audio news | Me + Richard Armitage said this on February 5, 2019 at 12:16 am |
[…] Armitage was nominated in 2019 (when he won two awards), 2018 (when he won his first), 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2010 (years when he did not win). […]
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Tenth Audie nom for Richard Armitage | Me + Richard Armitage said this on February 23, 2021 at 11:14 pm |