For our March 2022 event, the Minnesota Book Publishers Roundtable hosted Laura Brady, an accessibility expert with 25 years of trade publishing experience. Laura covered the basics of accessibility in eBooks and other digital products.

Laura began by saying, “In an era of thinking inclusively, paying close, thoughtful attention to accessibility in how we publish content is a natural extension of work on diverse voices.” But she cautioned that, “Accessibility is like ice cream—the longer you ignore it, the messier it can get.” She discussed the market, the law, and the principles of accessible design, as well as how to incorporate such design into publishing and how to be an advocate. After her presentation, Laura answered questions about off-the-shelf products for making manuscripts accessible, how to involve people early in the process to produce born-accessible content, the costs of both born-accessible content and making existing materials accessible, and raising consumer and industry awareness.

In the resources area of the MBPR website, members can access the event in a variety of ways: listening to the audio, watching the video, reading the script, and/or viewing Laura’s presentation slides.