The Clevedon U.K. bookstore, Books on the Hill, already has a dyslexic-friendly shop, and its owner, Alistair Sims, set up a small press that just closed a deal with major authors like Peter James, Lee Child, Karin Slaughter, and Bernard Cornwell to publish dyslexic-friendly novellas.
Books on the Hill Press has different formatting than typical books, which makes reading easier for those who are dyslexic. Some of those attributes include larger font size, more space between lines, and having left-aligned text. You can see their current offering here, which includes books by Neal Asher, Garth Nix, Gareth Powell, and Adrian Tchaikovsky.
Today marked the beginning of World Dyslexia Awareness Week, and Sims is urging all publishers to have one percent of their books printed in a dyslexic-friendly fashion. “People assume that, if a book is for dyslexic adults, then it’s simplified in plot and language, but it’s not,” he told The Guardian. “We’re not really changing the contents, we’re changing the formatting to make it easier to read.”
Sims—who has dyslexia—also shared with The Guardian that his books have been well-received by those with the same condition: “I’ve had people come into the shop and once they’ve looked at those books, they’ve said: ‘That’s something for me specifically, I can read this.’ A couple of people even cried. So it does make a difference to people’s lives.”
