Kimberly Gardner

Like most writers I am a voracious reader. I am also a sucker for a holiday theme romance. So this morning after reading Shannon Stacey’s column over at RTB, Tis the Season for Category Romance, I decided to pop over to Eharlequin and pick up a few Christmas theme category romances.

The site is nice, not too cluttered or busy and I quickly found two titles I thought looked pretty good. I registered, checked out and clicked over to the secure download site.

And that’s when the experience went sour.

According to my email receipt, my credit card was approved and my ebooks should be waiting for me. But when I reached the download page I couldn’t make heads or tails of any of the links or information presented there. (I’m visually-impaired and I use a screen reader.) The Eharlequin download is so heavily graphical with not a text tag in site that I was unable to download my titles without sighted assistance, a fact that makes me both frustrated and angry.

Why is it that a major publishing powerhouse like Harlequin, with all their cash and clout, can’t ensure that their site adheres to the most basic accessibility standards?

Oh, I’ll get my titles, later, when my husband is around to help me navigate the site, and be sure that Harlequin will be hearing from me about this less-than-jolly holiday shopping experience.

And you can also be sure that I won’t be purchasing any more titles from Eharlequin unless/until they get their act together on the accessibility front. It’s just not worth the aggravation.

Okay, rant over. *g* Now back to your regularly scheduled blog post.