Books Without Barriers: Editing for Equal Access

On the 6th February, I joined in a webcall with the Australian IPED (Institute of Professional Editors) where Julie Garner and Kayt Duncan talked about editing for equal access. Garner and Duncan have authored a book, ‘Books without Barriers’ where they outline how publishers and editors can make the books they produce can be more inclusive and accessible to people with a variety of needs. This is something that is not only important socially, and a cause very close to my heart and soul, but also with the European Accessibility Act coming into force for books published in 2025, it’s also a timely concern.

What’s great about this book is that it was written with for editors in mind and considering how this might be implemented into current workflows and briefs.

There is a way to edit books with an awareness of the barriers other people bring to the experience of reading due to various medical conditions. This is the ethos I am now bringing forwards into my own work, where I add a ‘accessibility edit’ where necessary for any jobs I have; after all the research, training and signing myself up for all these talks, I can't unsee these things. I feel as though I am in a position now where, ethically and because of my passionate belief in making books accessible to all, I have to be part of the small steps to change.

On the call, it was outlined that less than 10% of all books worldwide cater to those with print disabilities. As someone who is desperately trying, to find large print books or even ebooks for their child, just for the classroom (not even for commercial titles), I am not surprised by this percentage. According to the Department for Work and Pensions, 24% of the UK population has a disability in some form; with around 10%-20% of the population being diagnosed with dyslexia.

Accessibility for books though goes beyond print disabilities (as in the ability to read) but also extends to those who find it hard to physically hold a book for a length of time, or those who can not turn pages easily. For books, as a form of content, there needs to be a flexibility in content in order for it to be accessible, for example exist as a physical format, braille, large print, audiobook, ebook etc.

Files and content also need to be supplied in ways that adapted to be read by assisted technologies, such as screen reading software (which often skip certain text boxes and do not read those out). If an awareness of how the format might be used, interacted with or understood in formats other than print, and for a variety of needs from the conception of a book, it would go a long way towards making more titles accessible

Accessibility in Children’s Books

This being my particular area of passion and focus. Here are some of the things discussed on the presentation that I have brought into my own processes:

Capitalisation: though often used for emphasis, can be very difficult for those with print disabilities or visual impairments to focus on and read.

Bold and italics: again, when used for emphasis and use can vary by house style, these are visual cues and can be tricky to read or decipher.

Double quotation marks v single quotation marks: again, something that varies by house style, but double quotation marks are easier for the visually impaired to register on the page, as well as something that makes things easier for Braille transcription.

Symbols in text: as small superscript symbols (degrees etc.) can be small and difficult to see, write out the word before the symbol.

As well as the obvious design-focused ways to make picture books more accessible (that I have detailed in other blogs), making the language used in the books accessible was also discussed, and was something I had not considered previously.

For instance, making sure the language used to describe something isn’t purely visual, as this would make the description difficult for those with low vision to comprehend (for example, “It looked like a Jackson Pollock painting.” would need someone to have visually seen a painting). If using colour descriptions, keep them “known”, call something ‘red’ rather than ‘scarlet’ for instance, as shades of colour can be difficult to decipher for the visually impaired or those with colour blindness.

For digital content, image descriptions are key not only to describe images to those who can’t see them, but also help to reduce the mental load and physical strain for those who are visually impaired, but still want to enjoy the book or content. Effective alternative text should be an overview of an image, and a sufficient description to be able to standalone without the image.

Accessibility proofreading

Again, this is something I am taking from this call and presentation and have already implemented in my own workflow. When proofreading or editing a new book, there are things to point out to the editor and publisher to help increase the accessibility of the book.

—small fonts and tight leading

—ligatures

—poor colour contrast between text and backgrounds

—long and wide lines that might be difficult to follow

—capitalisation, italics

—text over images or textures

A huge thank you to the Australian IPED for putting on this amazing and important webcall (and thanks for letting me tag along from the UK), and to Julie Garner and Kayt Duncan. It gave me so much to think about and has already made a profound difference to how I am approaching my editing for accessibility.