For Immediate Release
Contact:
Bradi Grebien-Samkow: bradi@readhowyouwant.com
800-797-9277
New Book Formats from ReadHowYouWant Offer Print Disabled Readers Choices—Super Large Print, Braille, DAISY, and More
“I was surprised when I realized how few books were being produced for people who were visually impaired…” —ReadHowYouWant founder, Chris Stephen
Sydney, Australia, August 3, 2010—Reading just got a whole lot easier for the 15 million blind or visually impaired readers in the United States. Technology innovator ReadHowYouWant’s goals are to make reading easier and more enjoyable for all readers, despite print, physical, or learning disabilities, by delivering formats that suit the reader; and to give people with reading difficulties access to books in the formats of their choice at an affordable price, at or near the time the standard edition is released.
Through its partnerships with over 100 leading publishers, ReadHowYouWant offers readers the choice between as many as ten different formats at www.readhowyouwant.com, including electronic braille, synthesized audio MP3; optimized large print 24 pt. EasyRead® print-on-demand books, and DAISY—a talking book format that produces audio along with the written text. ReadHowYouWant also offers EasyRead® large print books in font sizes 16, 16 bold, 18, and 20 point.
Among the over 5,000 titles currently available from RHYW¾including The New York Times bestsellers The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (New World Library), and Tinkers by Paul Harding (Bellevue Literary Press)—are many health-related books, such as The Illustrated Guide to Assistive Technology and Devices by Suzanne Robitaille (Demos Health), Macular Degeneration: A Complete Guide for Patients and Their Families by Michael Samuel (Basic Health Publications), The Disabled Woman’s Guide to Pregnancy and Birth by Judith Rogers (Demos Health), The Survival Guide for Kids with LD by Gary Fisher (Free Spirit Publishing), and more.
In an interview with AbledBody.com’s Suzanne Robitaille, RHYW founder Chris Stephen says: “I was surprised when I realized how few books were being produced for people who were visually impaired or who could not read standard editions of books for whatever reason. Every edition needed to be created individually at considerable expense to organizations supporting those with reading issues... This is when I realized we needed a new business model...and that this would only be possible with a new technical solution to the problem—we needed to mark up a file once and then produce any format of book from that marked up file. This is when I started ReadHowYouWant.” The technology that Stephen developed allows for RHYW to convert hundreds of books a month into accessible formats.
About ReadHowYouWant
ReadHowYouWant Pty Ltd and its R&D parent company, Accessible Publishing Systems Pty Ltd are both Sydney, Australia-based privately held companies co-founded in 2004 by electronic publishing pioneers Christopher Stephen and Greg Duncan. When Chris’s sister, who suffers from MS, developed difficulty reading, they began experimenting to determine whether people with reading difficulties could benefit from changing the text format.
After more than four years of testing, ReadHowYouWant has successfully developed award-winning conversion technology that reformats existing books into the widest selection of on-demand, alternative format editions on the market today. Each edition has been optimized for maximum readability. For more information visit www.readhowyouwant.com.