YNOT – AVN Media Network on Friday began accepting pre-nominations for the 2012 incarnation of the granddaddy of all adult entertainment honors, the AVN Awards. Producers, manufacturers, retailers and online entrepreneurs are invited to request access to a restricted website where they may submit their movies, products, outlets and other entities for awards consideration.

The 29th AVN Awards Show is scheduled to take place Jan. 21 at The Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. AVN implemented a number of changes to award categories this year, which are detailed here.

The 2012 AVN Awards encompass a whopping 145 categories in four divisions: Video & DVD (114 categories), Sex Toys & Pleasure Products (12 categories), Retail & Distribution (six categories) and Web & Technology (13 categories).

In order to be eligible for a 2012 AVN Award nomination, a movie or product must have been released between Oct. 1, 2010, and Sept. 30, 2011. “Released” means made available for video-on-demand download and/or physically stocked with either 10 wholesale distributors or 100 retail outlets. Movies released only via VOD by Sept. 30 must be stocked in physical format by 10 wholesalers or 100 retail outlets no later than Oct. 15.

Pre-nominations will be accepted through midnight Oct. 15 — a later cutoff date than in previous years.

“We felt that with the awards show taking place two weeks later than it has traditionally, companies should be given a correlating amount of extra time to submit their pre-noms to us,” said AVN magazine senior editor Peter Warren. “And even though our release deadline for eligibility remains the same, we’ve made a few much called-for changes both as far as categories and our stipulations regarding release methods that I think better reflect the industry’s evolving distribution models and should be well received.”

For more information, visit AVN.com.