03 Jun, 2008

22 May, 2008

On May 20, 2008 the New York Times Book Review Blog, "Paper Cuts," featured RHYW.

http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/making-reading-easier/

22 May, 2008

18 Jun, 2008

ALA Ruby Sponsor ReadHowYouWant Offers Accessible Editions of ALA Conference Program Available Free for the Download

 

Australian publishing innovator of accessible formats, ReadHowYouWant, has teamed up with the ALA to offer the ALA conference programs in seven large print formats optimized for readability, as well as in BRF Braille and DAISY files. More than 1,000 librarians took advantage of the free downloads from the ALA’s website.

“We were impressed by the tremendous response from the library community,” said Chris Stephen, ReadHowYouWant’s founder and CEO. Stephen—a pioneer in electronic publishing—founded the new technology company after his sister developed MS and had difficulty reading. Stephen’s years spent in the research and development of a new system for converting books into accessible formats culminated in the company’s award-winning technology now available to publishers and libraries.

Visit ReadHowYouWant at booth #1224 and in the assistive technology section at booth #1277, enter to win a Kindle, and pick up a copy of The Book of Gentle Wisdom by Allan Kellehear (Michelle Anderson Publishing)in an EasyRead Super Large 18 point font edition.

About ReadHowYouWant

ReadHowYouWant Pty Ltd and its R&D parent company, Objective 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’ 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. The company’s goals are to make reading easier and more enjoyable 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, and as soon as the book is published. For more information visit http://www.ReadHowYouWant.com

26 Jun, 2008

1.  Font.  Serif font characters usually have “feet” at four points: the top of a capital like “I,” the top of small “a,” the bottom of a letter like “d,” and the bottom of a letter like “q.” These “feet” are designed to provide eye tracking when the type is closely spaced—the “feet” provide a kind of visual horizontal line that can be most easily seen looking along the line of serif print. The problem is that sans serif fonts have better word “recognizability”—it is easier and faster to recognize the word when it is printed in a sans serif font.

 

2.  Line Spacing.  The trick with EasyRead is to use the lines above and below, not the font, to provide eye tracking reference.  It turns out that the ideal relative spacing of lines is not constant—it depends on font size.  Therefore, we use a bigger proportional spacing in the EasyRead (11 pt font) as compared to EasyRead Comfort (13 pt font) and EasyRead Large (16 pt font).  Each of these formats was tested and modified in light of the testing in order to maximize the quality of each EasyRead size and edition. 

 

3.  Word and Character Spacing.  With the EasyRead formats, character spacing has also been optimized to make it easy to recognize words.  Furthermore, we have tried to keep the word spacing within strict limits to make eye tracking easy.  We also minimize hyphenation, which makes reading a lot harder.  This system of course is partially a trade off.  The stricter the word spacing, the more hyphenation we are likely to encounter.  Sometimes, the best option is to turn off the right-hand justification.  Our personalized books can be formatted this way.

 

4.  Intensity, Margins, and Indentation.  One reason why people use our larger formats is that they have lost central vision, usually because of a retinal problem.  Central vision is needed to see the beginning and ending of words and where the next word is. Traditionally, people with this problem have been given large-type books. But many people with retinal problems also need a more intense type, hence our EasyRead Bold formats. Our larger-type versions all use the margins to help people find where they are. That is why the paragraphs are not indented and the page numbers are aligned with the outside of the text box—these adjustments make it easier to run your eye up and down the text and locate where you are. We carry this formatting through to the smaller EasyRead versions as well to keep the format consistent.

 

As you can see, ReadHowYouWant offers much more than large-print books.  Our EasyRead formats adjust every aspect of printed text to provide optimal readability.  Designed to help readers with diagnosed low vision, EasyRead helps all readers to read more comfortably and easily and to retain more of what they read.

 

Chris Stephen

Founder and CEO, ReadHowYouWant

26 Jun, 2008

The American Library Association has taken notice that not all library patrons or librarians prefer to read books in “standard” formats, so they partnered with ReadHowYouWant to make the pre-conference---and just prior to the show---the final conference programs available in nine accessible formats.

In addition to all of our work behind the scenes for ALA before the show, we have big plans for the show itself, where we’ll have two booths on the show floor. You can find us at booth 1224 with The Combined Book Exhibit, and at booth 1277 in the Assistive Technology section.  At booth 1224, we’ll be offering free accessible format copies of The Book of Gentle Wisdom from Michelle Anderson Publishing. 

We’re very excited to be working with both Michelle Anderson and The Combined Book Exhibit on all of these exciting American Library Association Activities.

26 Jun, 2008

Following the theme of this year’s ERT Silent Auction, “Hollywood,” we’re happy to be donating 25 “before they were movies” novels, including:

Dracula

Frankenstein

Pride and Prejudice

Jude the Obscure

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Oliver Twist

Heart of Darkness (film: Apocalypse Now)

Wuthering Heights and more!

 

If you’ll be at the conference, please support upcoming librarians by bidding in the ALA scholarship silent auction. The auction’s goal is to raise $25k to help offset educational costs of library science students, and we’re happy to make this collection, valued at over $500, part of the contribution to the cause.

 

The winner chooses the format for each book, so this collection is tailored specifically for you. Be sure to go to the following site to see the details, and get your bids ready:

 

http://www.ala.org/ala/ert/ertsilentauction2008.cfm

26 Jun, 2008

After hearing RHYW founder Chris Stephens speak at a meeting organized by the Australian Publishers Association, Michelle Anderson, publisher, owner, and namesake of Michelle Anderson Publishing, sought out ReadHowYouWant to make their books available for markets they couldn’t reach before  “I am very pleased that my books are now available in these many new formats and that they are going to be marketed widely,” says Michelle via email. 

Michelle Anderson Publishing has also been kind enough to allow ReadHowYouWant to give away copies of The Book of Gentle Wisdom at the upcoming American Library Association Annual Conference in Anaheim, California. “I am hoping that with the donation of copies of The Book of Gentle Wisdom to librarians at The American Library Association Annual Conference both the book and our company profile will be raised on the American market,” adds Michelle.

Giving away an Amazon Kindle, as ReadHowYouWant did at the recent Bookexpo America, is one way to drive traffic to a booth; but to make the BEA Show Daily (the daily report of the happenings at Bookexpo America, published by Publishers Weekly), you must be doing something truly special. Click here to see what they had to say.

You probably also saw that RHYW was recently featured in Publishers Weekly for their Large Print feature (which you can see at http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6561932.html if you missed it).But in case you didn’t hear, Paper Cuts, the blog of the New York Times Book Review, has also taken notice of ReadHowYouWant.Check it out at http://papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/20/

Also, be sure to check http://www.readhowyouwant.com/ often for all our news updates.