Half-price eBooks from WH Smith

Posted by Paul Nisbet on the 13th January, 2010

WH Smith are selling eBooks half price until 15 January. There are over 100,000 available and so you can get your hands on say the Twilight series for £4 each (no thanks), Rebus novels by Ian Rankin (that's more like it) as well as books by the likes of Barack Obama or Jeremy Clarkson. 

Most of the eBooks are electronic publication (EPUB) format which can be read with a Sony Reader or an iPhone or on a computer using the free Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) software. ADE leaves a lot to be desired in terms of accessibility though:

1. Most of the commercial eBooks are copy-protected so you can't read them with text-to-speech software or a screen reader.
2. The maximum font size is depends on your font size and resolution, but I estimate it to be about 20 pt.
   
3. You can't change colour of text or background.
4. You can't change font or line spacing.
   
5. Keyboard navigation is very limited.

ADE is OK if you basicaly want to see the pages on screen and click a key or switch to turn the pages, but readers with visual impairment or dyslexia may struggle.

However, if you've not looked at an EPUB book, now's your chance to buyone at half price. You can also get some free eBooks (e.g. Sherlock Holmes, Dracula) from the Adobe web site library.

The eBook revolution could be really good news for readers who struggle with standard printed books, but only if the eBook readers and the eBook formats are accessible. Adobe is working on improving the accessibility of ADE (see: Adobe eBooks - Update on Accessibility Support ) and the latest version of EasyReader can open EPUBs, but it can't read them out with text-to-speech because the text is copy-protected. So we need EPUB to let text-to-speech programs get at the text to read it out, and eBook readers that are accessible. Persuading publishers to provide accessible formats might be difficult but making an accessible eBook reader should be easy given that Adobe already has one - Adobe Reader. With Adobe Reader you can magnify the text massively, reflow to fit the screen, change colours, and it even has basic text-to-speech.