2022 Audie Award Winners Announced
The 2022 Audie Award winners were announced on Friday in a virtual gala that was live-streamed on Youtube. You can catch the replay on the Audie website, but some notable winners include Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir for Audiobook of the Year, Somebody’s Daughter by Ashley C. Ford for Auotibiography/Memoir, and Lin Manuel Miranda won Best Male Narrator for his performance of Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World by Benjamin Alire Sanez. See the full list of winners and finalists.
Amazon To Close All Bookstores
Amazon’s foray into brick and mortar bookstore’s has come to a close. Amazon opened its first bookstore in Seattle in 2015, and has since opened another twenty-four bookstores as well as forty+ pop-up shops around the country. Now they are all closing and employees are receiving severance packages or options to transfer to other Amazon store locations. When Amazon opened its first brick and mortar store, the bookstore industry quickly become concerned about competition and how this would impact independent stores. However, the Amazon stores largely looked the same and carried the same top-rated books from their online storefront, and their impact on local bookstore scenes wasn’t as profound as many feared.
Fantasy Author’s Surprise New Book Series Sets Kickstarter Record
Brandon Sanderson has set multiple records for his Kickstarter campaign, which launched March 1st. Initially asking for a million dollars to self-publish and distribute four books he wrote in secret during the pandemic, the Kickstarter campaign is now up to $20 million with more than three weeks left. These four books will be set in his Cosmere Universe and backers can receive the books in all formats, as well as swag boxes for what’s being dubbed as the “Year of Sanderson.” Sanderson is also the author of the Mistborn novels, and he finished the bestselling Wheel of Time series after author Robert Jordan’s death.