The Digital Famine

Before getting into the best practices themselves, there are two subjects that it would be a lapse for me to not talk about first. The digital famine is the first, as it will hopefully give you some real-world perspective on why accessibility matters.

You’re probably wondering what the famine is, since there are some impressive statistics emerging to show that the ebook revolution isn’t slowing down any time soon. Unfortunately, the numbers aren’t where it matters most yet if you believe in universal access to information. Sales are rising exponentially year over year, but the number of accessible ebooks available at the source is still small.

A commonly cited statistic in accessibility circles is that only about 5 percent of the books produced in any year are ever made available in an accessible format. Although there are signs that this rate is beginning to tick upward with more ebooks being produced, the overall percentage of books that become available in accessible formats still remains abysmally small. Fiction bestsellers are a bright spot, as they’ve been the first to receive the digital treatment, but there’s more to reading than just fiction.