Wordcatcher Publishing

 Wordcatcher Publishing is a small – but rapidly expanding – indie publisher which is now fast approaching its 300th title. They publish in a wide variety of genres and themes: from sci-fi to academia and from business to poetry. Their mission is to make our diverse catalogue of quality books both environmentally sustainable and widely available.

 They recently became a signatory to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Publishers Compact. This means they have committed to doing their part in reducing inequality. Their involvement in RNIB Bookshare is one way they can live up to this promise to help to ensure a better, more accessible tomorrow.

 Journey to RNIB Bookshare

Before they had heard of RNIB Bookshare, they were looking for a solution to give greater accessibility to their titles. When they discovered RNIB Bookshare, it was an easy decision to team up.

 As a small publisher they would struggle to provide the access to their books that RNIB Bookshare offers. It would have required additional investment in technology that they probably couldn’t fund. RNIB takes their files and processes them in ways that deliver the desired access for people with a range of reading disabilities.

 An appeal to other Publishers and Authors

A word to other publishers from Wordcatcher;

‘Because we partner with Booksonix, we are able to process titles to send to RNIB Bookshare as soon as we have the ebook edition ready for pre-order/publication. Now it’s a completely automated process. If you’re a publisher whose ONIX data distributor doesn’t already have a feed set up to RNIB, we’d encourage you to get them involved too. If they do have a feed set up – get your books in the system. RNIB Bookshare’s catalogue of titles is growing, but it could be so much bigger, and currently represents a small fraction of the books that could be made available.’

 And to authors ….

‘If you are an author and want to support this type of access to your work for those with reading disabilities, ask your publisher if they know about this programme and whether they are involved.’

 Thanks Wordcatcher!

And finally

‘I’m proud to work for a company that is signed up to RNIB Bookshare. As someone whose grandmother was blind for several years, it means the world to me.’ Nick McAlpin, Marketing & PR Assistant, Wordcatcher Publishing Group Ltd