That’s the question I get most often right behind:
- Christine, when is your cookbook coming out?
- Christine, what’s Gordon Ramsay really like?
- Christine, are you really blind?
- Christine, how do you use Facebook or Twitter if you’re blind? (Or, Christine, is this really you?)
To which I answer:
- May 14, 2013.
- He’s hilarious, charismatic, and smells great.
- Yes.
- There’s something called technology—Apple has built-in screen readers on all their products called VoiceOver. Yes, it’s really me.
So back to our question of the day: is my cookbook,
Recipes from My Home Kitchen, available in accessible formats for the blind?I had a long discussion back and forth with Rodale, the publishing house, about this matter since day one, before I’d even written a single recipe down. “It’s vital that my cookbook is accessible for the visually impaired. That’s a given. I can’t leave my biggest fan base in the dark (nyuk, nyuk generic name for xanax),” I’d said.And so I was told by Rodale that they looked into all sorts of options, including publishing it in Braille or as an audio book. I was told Brailling quickly became too expensive, and they didn’t want to have to pass that price on to the consumer. I have no doubt, though, that my cookbook will one day be Brailled or recorded and made available for loan via the many resources for text-to-speech for the blind.Currently, however, if you purchase a version for the
Kindle,
Nook, or from
iBooks, These versions, I’ve been told, have audio capability so the text can be read aloud on their respective devices.
The Kindle even recently came out with new features for the visually impaired.Has anyone tried out any of these accessible formats of my cookbook? Your feedback is welcome. I will pass it along to Rodale.