Engage With EAA

Writing Magazine – December 2026

Simon Whaley chats to two publishing accessibility experts about the impact of the European Accessibility Act on self-published authors.

Eighteen months ago, in June 2025, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) came into force. Its goal is to improve accessibility for readers who can’t use print products. A print disability includes blindness or low vision, challenges with reading, such as dyslexia, as well as physical difficulties in holding or turning pages in a book.

But what is the EAA, and what steps should self-published writers be taking to ensure we meet its obligations?

Laura Brady (laurabrady.ca) is a publishing and accessibility specialist. As she explains, the European Accessibility Act became law because even though eBooks should have brought about many improved accessibility features for readers, this wasn’t always the case.

‘The advent of digital publishing should have been a bonanza for readers with print disabilities. All those books that were previously locked in an inaccessible print format were now in HTML versions that their assistive technologies could parse, right? That was not borne out in fact, partly because of faulty workflows, partly because of ham-fisted conversion tools that didn’t do a good job, and partly because of a lack of understanding of accessibility.’

I remember when my book, One Hundred Ways For A Dog To Train Its Human, was first published in eBook format back in February 2013. My Kindle struggled to cope with it because the publisher uploaded the PDF file in order to keep the pen-and-ink line drawings in the right place. None of it was reflowable.

Accessibility Awareness

‘The EAA is tremendously important for readers with print disabilities,’ Laura continues, ‘because it has raised awareness of accessibility for all players in the publishing supply chain, but also because it comes with teeth. It’s a wonder what the threat of a €5000 fine will do (fines vary by country, with some exceeding €50,000). Doing the work of producing accessible content serves all of your readers, including people with disabilities. But it also makes for better all-round content that serves the needs of everyone better. Accessible eBooks are better eBooks, full stop.’

Devices that allow readers to increase the font size of their eBooks are only part of the accessibility story. Content that contains images needs alternative text so devices can describe to those with sight issues what the image is, and the text needs to be styled or structured in a way that makes it easier to navigate.

Simon Mellins (simonmellins.com) is a digital publishing and accessibility consultant, and co-host of The Digital Publishing Podcast. He agrees that this legislation is vital for readers with print disabilities.

‘It is difficult to overstate the importance of these changes for those living with print-disabilities. The written word (even if consumed auditorily) remains one of the dominant modes by which our civilisation communicates its ideas, visions, and entertainment.’

‘The ability to learn, contribute, and be entertained are all crucial elements of a rich human experience, and by taking these ostensibly technical and practical measures, entire worlds open up to people who previously had access to only small parts of it. Accessible content takes away those hurdles and places people’s experience of our shared culture on equal footing. It brings millions of human minds to the intellectual and cultural table who might otherwise not be able to take a seat.’

While the EAA only affects the European Union, it has a direct impact on any self-published author whose eBooks will be available on any platform within the EU. (The act does not apply to print books.) Even though I only self-publish in English, I have sold eBooks in France, Germany, Austria, and Spain through Amazon. Therefore, as I’m selling in the European market, my eBooks need to meet the EAA regulations.

EAA Exemptions

Only books published by publishers with more than ten employees and an annual turnover of €2 million or more are directly affected by the Act. However, self-publishing authors still need to take this seriously.

Even though we might be exempt, the platforms we use, like Amazon, Draft2Digital, IngramSpark, Apple, and Kobo, are not. They sell in the European market, so they have to abide by the regulations. Therefore, they are implementing changes on their platforms that affect us.

This is why Amazon updated the second page of the upload process for authors to include a question about accessibility. Information we enter here is offered to readers who click on the Accessibility icon on our book’s product page. 

Simon also explains how not taking this seriously can have other consequences. ‘Choosing to remain inaccessible also increasingly leads to publications being screened out of procurement processes for public bodies, including education institutions.’ 

For example, many self-published authors make their eBooks available to libraries, but will they buy our eBooks if they lack accessibility features?

Accessible Areas

The key accessibility issues the act focuses on are:

  • Screen Reader Compatibility. This means the structure of our eBooks needs to allow screen reading devices to deliver text-to-speech smoothly. To do this, they need styles to be applied to the text consistently, with all headings being clearly identified in a uniform style, as should any subheadings.
  • Alternative Text. Every image or chart within a book needs to have alternative text so that a screen reader can draw upon this information and describe it to the reader.
  • Flexible layouts and navigation. Tables of contents should be accurate and complete. Text needs to be reflowable, so readers can alter the font size, spacing, and even the colour contrast, if appropriate, without causing any issues.
  • EPUB 3 Standard. All eBooks should use the newer EPUB 3 formatting system because the older EPUB 2 doesn’t use the right metadata or structural markers.

It’s also worth clarifying that the EAA applies to all new books published now, but publishers don’t have to rectify previously published backlist titles until June 2030.

Many of the eBook-formatting software services that self-publishing authors use now export our manuscripts into EPUB 3 format, which goes a long way to meeting these standards. Services like Vellum, Atticus, Reedsy Studio, and Kindle Create can import a Word document and export an EPUB 3 file.

When I acquired the rights back to my Photography for Writers book, I knew I wanted to self-publish it and include photographs. I use Vellum’s formatting software, and that checks my images are the right size and pixel resolution, but it also prompts me to insert the alternative text each time I insert a photo into the text.

Check Charge-free

However, just because the exported file is in the newer EPUB 3 format, that may not mean everything in our file is accessible. To check this, Simon recommends using some of the free accessibility tools available to us.

‘The best thing that self-publishing authors can do is to familiarise themselves with the free accessibility tools available. If you’re working in EPUB, the tools offered by the DAISY Consortium (Ace and SMART) work in tandem to facilitate accessibility self-auditing and remediation. If you are not outputting EPUB, you probably should be, but nonetheless do make full use of tools like AXES4’s PAC, a powerful free PDF accessibility checker, and the excellent accessibility checking tools built into Microsoft Office products, including Word.’

Laura also recommends using some accessibility checking tools (see Business Directory) and not relying completely on the conversion software. ‘I would also caution self-published authors that the tools they use may not be the best way to create accessible eBooks and to investigate that rigorously. It’s easy to parrot the language of accessibility, but it’s trickier to actually make accessible content effectively. And when regulators come to enforce the EAA, they are going to hold the publishers responsible, not the makers of the conversion tool.’

If you’re new to self-publishing, the EAA may seem more daunting than it is. If you’re creating an EPUB file using one of the common tools mentioned earlier, the chances are you’re already meeting most of the accessibility requirements, if not all. What’s more important is that you’re aware of the legislation, so you can format your text appropriately in your Word processor of choice first, before importing it into your EPUB file conversion software, and should you include images and tables, then you should remember to include some alternate text.

Simon agrees. ‘It’s important that we don’t get overly hung up on the specifics of the EAA, or any other piece of legislation for a specific territory. The key conclusion is that similar legislation is rapidly arriving all over the world, and any attempt to carefully bypass laws in one place will likely run straight into them in another.’

‘Rather than doing this, or worrying over minor differences in the requirements, focus on the commonalities. These are vast, because virtually all of this legislation resists giving precise technical instructions. Instead, it points would-be adherents toward the well-established Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which offer a common target to meet global accessibility standards and ensure a publication can be distributed just-about anywhere.’

Ultimately, we want all readers to be able to read our books, and the EAA is Europe’s attempt to improve that accessibility. The software many of us use to create our eBooks can go a long way to help us meet those obligations.

And now we have access to free tools that can check the accessibility of our eBooks before we upload them. If they detect an issue that we can’t resolve, then specialist accessibility services like those offered by Laura Brady (laurabrady.ca) and Simon Mellins (simonmellins.com) become the next step.

Because, as Laura said earlier, ‘Accessible ebooks are better ebooks, full stop.’

Business Directory: EAA Compatibility-Checking Software 

To review your electronic book files for EAA compatibility requirements, check out the following free tools:

© Simon Whaley