Host Anna Featherstone speaks with Julie Ganner and Dr. Agata Mrva-Montoya, co-authors of Books Without Barriers: A Practical Guide to Inclusive Publishing. They discuss how authors can make their books accessible from the start—by addressing formatting, fonts, image descriptions, and digital navigation.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- What print disability means
- How to reach readers across formats
- Simple production changes that improve access
- Accessibility tips for children’s books
- How semantic tagging and font choices support more readers
Find more author advice, tips, and tools at our Self-Publishing Author Advice Center, with a huge archive of nearly 2,000 blog posts and a handy search box to find key info on the topic you need. And, if you haven’t already, we invite you to join our organization and become a self-publishing ally.
Sponsors
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This podcast is also sponsored by Gatekeeper Press, the all-inclusive Gold Standard in Publishing, offering authors 100% rights, royalties, satisfaction and worldwide distribution. Gatekeeper Press, Where Authors are Family.
About the Host
Anna Featherstone is ALLi’s nonfiction adviser and an author advocate and mentor. A judge of The Australian Business Book Awards and Australian Society of Travel Writers awards, she’s also the founder of Bold Authors and presents author marketing and self-publishing workshops for organizations, including Byron Writers Festival. Anna has authored books including how-to and memoirs and her book Look-It’s Your Book! about writing, publishing, marketing, and leveraging nonfiction is on the Australian Society of Authors recommended reading list. When she’s not being bookish, Anna’s into bees, beings, and the big issues of our time.
About the Guests
Dr. Agata Mrva-Montoya is a senior lecturer and degree director of the Master of Publishing program in the Discipline of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney. Her research explores how technological innovation and power dynamics shape the publishing industry, with a particular focus on equitable access to literature and knowledge. She is president of the Round Table on Information Access for People with Print Disability and co-editor of Publishing Research Quarterly. Her background includes leading the implementation of accessible publishing practices at Sydney University Press. She is co-author of Books Without Barriers: A Practical Guide to Inclusive Publishing (2023), and her forthcoming book, Inclusive Publishing and the Quest for Reading Equity, will be published in August by Cambridge University Press.
Julie Ganner, AE, is an accredited freelance editor and a lecturer in editing for the University of Sydney’s Master of Publishing program. She represented the Institute of Professional Editors (IPEd) at the Australian Inclusive Publishing Initiative (AIPI), a cross-industry forum on print accessibility, and is a former chair of IPEd’s Accessibility Initiative Working Party. She is the 2025 winner of the Janet Mackenzie Medal, IPEd’s highest honor, awarded in recognition of her service to the editing profession. Julie is co-author of Books Without Barriers: A Practical Guide to Inclusive Publishing (IPEd and Australian Publishers Association, 2023) and Inclusive Publishing in Australia: An Introductory Guide (AIPI, 2019). Both guides are available as free downloads in multiple formats.
