It came to me to try a little experiment.
I decided to try and see how many books were readily available for the blind, covering living with low vision or blindness in general and available on Kindle readers with text to speech enabled.
Do you know how many I found in the first two pages of Amazon's website?
NONE!
Ok Pun intended here. How can publishers be so short-sighted?
The Kindle for me is my primary book reader, now there are more books available with the text to speech facility enabled.
I have two Kindle's an older DX and a new Kindle touch. Both work well and it means now I am less dependent on publishers creating a CD version of the book, more expensive and usually available a year or two after initial publication, or having to wait for my local library for the blind to send me a copy of a book through the mail.
We blind and visually impaired have a right to get information. I don't need to buy a print copy of a book, give it to my spouse to read for me, or a friend either. Then have them tell me what it said.
OK I do have an Intel Reader which I know could read the book for me. But what about you? Do you have a reader? Do you feel that publishers should do more to make their product available to us?
After all do they publish the books so sighted people can vicariously experience blindness? Surely the authors wanted to share information and want to see their books available to the widest audience possible. We are willing to buy the book so why won't they create something we can read, or listen to?
If you feel the same way as I do.
Go to Amazon.com and select books which are not available on Kindle. Click the link to ask the publisher to publish the book to Kindle and lets see if we can't all really benefit from shared knowledge.
I decided to try and see how many books were readily available for the blind, covering living with low vision or blindness in general and available on Kindle readers with text to speech enabled.
Do you know how many I found in the first two pages of Amazon's website?
NONE!
Ok Pun intended here. How can publishers be so short-sighted?
The Kindle for me is my primary book reader, now there are more books available with the text to speech facility enabled.
I have two Kindle's an older DX and a new Kindle touch. Both work well and it means now I am less dependent on publishers creating a CD version of the book, more expensive and usually available a year or two after initial publication, or having to wait for my local library for the blind to send me a copy of a book through the mail.
We blind and visually impaired have a right to get information. I don't need to buy a print copy of a book, give it to my spouse to read for me, or a friend either. Then have them tell me what it said.
OK I do have an Intel Reader which I know could read the book for me. But what about you? Do you have a reader? Do you feel that publishers should do more to make their product available to us?
After all do they publish the books so sighted people can vicariously experience blindness? Surely the authors wanted to share information and want to see their books available to the widest audience possible. We are willing to buy the book so why won't they create something we can read, or listen to?
If you feel the same way as I do.
Go to Amazon.com and select books which are not available on Kindle. Click the link to ask the publisher to publish the book to Kindle and lets see if we can't all really benefit from shared knowledge.
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