Accessible Publishing in Canada
Publishers aren’t evil; nobody wants to publish inaccessibly. But book publishers in Canada — particularly small and medium independent publishers — are also overworked, underpaid, and frazzled by the depth of knowledge required to publish accessibly. It’s not impossible but it does require two important things: the will to cross your Ts and dot your Is when it comes to accessibility. And some governance infrastructure to both reinforce and regulate the need for accessible content would also be useful.
The systemic problem with accessible publishing in Canada is that the institutional knowledge required to do an effective job is high-level, deeply technical, and a very much in-demand skill set. Keeping folks with this kind of understanding employed in book publishing is an ongoing challenge because of poor pay levels. It probably won’t surprise many readers but book publishing doesn’t pay all that well. Folks get trained, understand how to make a good accessible EPUB or what WCAG means and then move to other sectors where their pay is doubled.
The job descriptions can also be problematic. The person responsible for accessibility might also be the person who manages the customer service in-box, gets books to the printer, and writes metadata. Most publishing employees in Canada work for very small firms and wear several hats; which means that they may be thinking about accessibility out of the corner of their eye, so to speak. Or that the work of accessibility might be spread across three or four people who don’t get to collaborate as often as necessary, leading to gaps and redundancies.
Even with the best intentions, book publishers have a hard time retaining the institutional knowledge required to meet accessibility standards regularly. And this is a crying shame.
Accessibility is a culture.
My colleague Cristina Musinelli from Fondazione LIA, an Italian publisher-support organization, says that accessibility is a culture. And she is right!
Let’s talk about the impetus to publish accessibly. There is no doubt in my mind that the cycle works best when everyone in a publishing house understands the issues at play making it a group effort with checks and balances built in. Well-rounded book publishing is also 360° accessible book publishing. But you know what also works well? The threat of five thousand euro fines. The threat of legislation repercussion is a very, very good way to get publishers to sit up and pay attention.
The Accessible Books Initiative from 2019–2024 was an excellent boost to the industry from which the Canadian publishing landscape has benefitted tremendously. But accessibility work is not wrapped up now that the fund is exhausted and there are no formal supports for accessibility work. I worry that the ABI has publishers wiping their hands, congratulating themselves on a job well done, and moving on.
And that’s where the deep value of a legislative and governance motivation comes in. The European Accessibility Act despite having no mandate in Canada, is a wonderful prism through which to see the direct impact of those 5k euro fines. Publishers who want to distribute internationally must pay attention to legislation on another continent. And that’s a beautiful thing. I find myself being quite envious of the impact of the EAA and wishing for legislation with teeth in Canada. Have I contemplated starting a petition to become part of the EU? Maybe…
Here’s some things I see happening: publishers run their books through Ace by Daisy, and consider their content fully accessible if it passes. (Pro tip: passing Ace is just the start of a good accessibility audit.) I also see publishers self-certifying which makes me squeamish. eBound Canada has a certification program which is not expensive and is excellent. Sign up with them!
I want to close out this short talk by pointing to Adobe InDesign. Part of my work is meeting publishers where they work and that is in InDesign. 95% of books — both in Canada and around the world — are laid out in InDesign. I have been working with a small expert group for the past four years on improving how InDesign makes EPUB so that a large swath of publishers are now making more accessible EPUBs without even realizing it. Have I tricked book publishers in to making better ebooks? Possibly…
Links
https://inclusivepublishing.org/news-and-events/news/adobe-indesign-21-0-epub-accessibility-updates/
https://www.eboundcanada.org/our-services/ebounddigitalcertification/
This is an edited version of a talk I gave to the 2026 Accessible Reading Symposium.
Header photo by Christopher Stites on Unsplash.
