The European Accessibility Act and Your Ebooks
The European Accessibility Act (EAA) takes effect at the end of June 2025. This law mandates that digital products (including ebooks) meet minimum accessibility standards for all consumers. The goal of this legislation is to ensure that people with disabilities have equal access to all digital goods.
If you publish ebooks and want to sell in the EU market after the EAA goes into full effect in June 2025, compliance with accessibility guidelines is no longer optional.
This guide explains what the EAA is, why creating accessible EPUBs is essential, and how you, as a Lulu user, can ensure your EPUB files meet accessibility standards.
What You Need to Know About the European Accessibility Act
The EAA establishes accessibility requirements for specific products and services, allowing individuals with disabilities access to those products and services. If you’re into slogging through legal documents and legislation, you can read the full text from the European Union's directory.
For us, that means ebooks sold in EU countries on the Lulu Bookstore or through Global Distribution need to meet the standards laid out in the European Accessibility Act. That means incorporating features like screen reader compatibility, simple and logical navigation, and alternative descriptions for non-text content (like images). While the EAA is somewhat vague about what ‘meeting’ these standards entails, the best way to ensure your ebook is compliant is to use WCAG 2 Level AA standards for accessibility. These are standards developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international non-profit that works to make all webpages globally accessible.
Compliance is self-reported, meaning you are responsible for meeting these standards when you create your ebook file.
Why Accessibility Matters
Inclusive design benefits everyone, not just individuals with disabilities. Accessible EPUBs designed to a universal standard make it easier for your book to be enjoyed on a variety of different devices. Selling in the European market is a big audience for a lot of authors. Even if you don’t have a lot of customers in the EU, it's worth your while to ensure your ebooks can be sold there.
By adopting accessibility best practices now, you future-proof your content. These accessibility standards will likely become the norm for most, if not all, markets in the future. And you ensure that your content is available to the widest possible audience.
EAA Compliance and Lulu
Compliance with EAA is self-reported. Lulu does not scan or review your EPUB files to ensure they will meet the WCAG 2 standards required for compliance.
While publishing your ebook, you’ll see a section that requires you to choose ‘accessible’ or ‘non-accessible’ for your ebook’s status. If you follow the steps outlined below to ensure compliance, you can choose ‘accessible’ for your ebook. If you know your EPUB file does not meet accessibility standards, or you’re not sure if it does, you should select ‘non-accessible.’
Ebooks that are marked as ‘non-accessible’ will still be available for sale in all regions on the Lulu Bookstore, but they will include a notice to buyers that your ebook may not work correctly with screen readers or other accessibility tools. EPUB ebooks using Global Distribution may be unavailable in some regions based on your accessibility status.
PDF ebooks will automatically be marked as ‘non-accessible’ for all projects.
How to Make Your EPUB Files Compliant
The key to making your EPUB ebook accessible lies in the file structure and data included. Here is a short list of the most important features of an accessible EPUB.
- Reflowable Text: This allows your content to adjust to different screen sizes and orientations.
- Semantic HTML: Use properly structured HTML to organize your content, making navigation easier for screen readers.
- Alt Text for Images: Include descriptive text for every image. This makes visual content meaningful for readers with visual impairments.
- Accessible Navigation: Create a comprehensive table of contents and clearly define reading order.
- Metadata: Add metadata like the title, language, and accessibility features (e.g., "screen reader compatible") to your EPUB.
- Font Adjustability: Use fonts and formatting that accommodate visually impaired readers. Fonts like OpenDyslexic can make a significant difference.
If that seems daunting, don’t worry. Most tools for creating and editing EPUBs will do the work for you.
Tools to Help You Get Started
There are a variety of tools to help you create and validate accessible EPUBs. These are the three that I’ve used and found to be the best for different ebook projects:
- Sigil: Sigil is free to download and is great for editing and building EPUB files. Because it's a free, open-source software, it can be a little rough around the edges, but if you’re interested in learning the ins and outs of EPUB editing, Sigil is a great choice.
- Calibre: This is my personal choice for EPUB editing and management. Calibre is also free to use and offers an impressive suite of ebook editing options.
- Adobe InDesign: If you’re an Adobe user, InDesign can export an EPUB file that meets all accessibility standards. The only real sticking point with InDesign is the cost.
If you’ve already got some EPUB files or you want to check to see if your newly crafted ebook meets accessibility standards, I suggest using the Ace App by Daisy. Much like W3C, Daisy is a group working to create and maintain standards for digital accessibility. Their Ace App will review your EPUB file, note errors based on a variety of standards (including the WCAG 2 Level AA standards for EAA compliance), and provide details about how to correct the error.
You may need to do some searching to understand what each error means, but once you isolate them, the EPUB file can be edited and updated to ensure compliance.
Steps to Create Accessible EPUBs on Lulu
- Prepare Your Content: Use appropriate formatting and semantic HTML for your source text.
- Add Accessibility Features: Include alt text, table of contents, and metadata.
- Validate Your EPUB: Run your file through ACE to identify issues.
- Upload to Lulu: Once complete, upload your validated EPUB file to Lulu.
Additional Resources for Accessible Ebooks
If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed by all this, you’re not alone. Reformatting EPUB files to ensure they meet accessibility standards can be a challenge. Luckily, there are several very useful resources out there.
The first thing you should do is review our detailed article about creating accessible EPUBs. This article includes all of our information specific to creating and publishing an accessible ebook on Lulu.
Another resource I recommend is the YouTube channel of the European Union's Publication Office. You can find that here: https://www.youtube.com/@PublicationsOffice
This channel has a ton of videos breaking down various aspects of European Law, including how to create accessible ebooks using many popular page layout platforms. Here’s the InDesign video they posted:
As you prepare to update your ebooks for accessibility, I strongly recommend spending some time reviewing these videos to be sure you understand exactly what is required and how to achieve it.
Your Accessible Ebooks
Creating accessible ebooks is going to be the new normal. The EAA is the first of what will likely be many laws and regulations mandating that digital content be available in numerous accessible formats. So, while it might not have a large impact on your current ebooks to mark the non-accessible, you should future-proof your books now.
That means taking the time to learn how to understand accessibility guidelines and apply those rules to your own EPUB files.
