Free ebooks for readers with disabilities

[elf]

I was reminded of this while looking for the new Vorkosigan book as an ebook:

Baen Books has made available its entire catalogue of e-books to people who have a reading disability. This can be visual impairment or physical inability to hold a book.

This was originally done for Veteran's Day 2009, but is not limited to veterans, and they're apparently broad in their concept of "reading disability"--they mean "if you have a hard time reading books on paper, have some free ebooks. Have a lot of free ebooks." (There's a form to fill out requiring you tell them what kind of disability you have; dyslexia is one of the options.)

There's free software that reads all their types of ebooks (and I believe all are available in HTML so they can be read in any web browser), so this isn't limited to people with dedicated ebook readers or who like to read on their phones.

For those who don't have a qualifying disability, Baen also has an extensive free library of ebooks.

Comments

[sineala]

I can confirm that going through the process is entirely painless; I just got an email back the next day saying that I qualified on the basis of having trouble reading paper books (I don't think they called my doctor, but I could be wrong) and that I should pay it forward whenever possible. Then I got an email with a temporary password. Once you log in to Webscriptions, there's a (VIP) after your name and every book in the catalog shows up as "previously purchased" (and therefore able to be read). And they all come in HTML, among other formats.

...and then I put all the Vorkosigan books on my Kindle. :) I even went and bought the paper version of Cryoburn the other day, even though I very probably won't read it in paper (and already read the ebook), to support Baen. Also I wanted the CD with all the Vorkosigan books on it.

It's probably worth mentioning that the sharing goes even beyond the free library, as all of the CDs that have been bound into certain of their hardcovers are freely distributable, as authorized by Baen. This includes things like the entire Honor Harrington series and now the entire Vorkosigan series (inexplicably minus Memory).

[ein_myria]

Thanks for this, I didn't know about it; I'll spread the word.

I like how Baen is all about trust when they responded to the inquiry about the system possibly being abused. ;)