Annabel talks to Jacqui Kibby
Jacqui Kibby is founder and Publishing Director of Scorpius Books, a UK indie book publisher based in Colchester and a member of the Indie Press Network. Scorpius Books is the first publisher in the UK to specialise in dyslexia-friendly titles for adult readers. We asked their founder, Jacqui, some questions.
Annabel: Can you tell me how Scorpius Books came about and how you got into publishing?
Jacqui: Prior to starting Scorpius Books, I worked as a freelance fiction editor for small publishers for over twelve years and had my own books published, which allowed me to experience the industry from both sides of the fence.
Plans for Scorpius Books were already in motion, when in 2018 I was looking for a book for my dyslexic partner. As there were editions for children, I naively figured there must be editions for adults. But on looking, I was shocked to discover there was no dyslexic-friendly fiction for adults. Nothing at all. It was really frustrating. Despite over 10% of the UK population estimated to be dyslexic, it was as if the industry believed you simply grew out of it, which of course isn’t the case. Their view that there were ebooks and audiobooks wasn’t good enough. Why couldn’t a dyslexic adult walk into a bookshop and get the latest version of their favourite author like everyone else? With research, speaking with dyslexic readers, charities and associations, I found that many readers still wanted to be able to pick up a physical book and walk into a bookshop, yet were unable to due to small fonts and tightly formatted text. The industry view that ‘dyslexic people don’t read’ was completely untrue – people with dyslexia simply have difficulty processing written information that’s optimised for non-dyslexic people.
So, I decided to change that. In June 2020, Scorpius Books became the UK’s 1st publisher of dyslexic-friendly fiction for adults, with a deep core belief that great stories should be accessible to all. Since then, Scorpius has published over 20 titles, and acquired the rights to publish James Herbert’s horror classic The Rats, as well as books based on classic TV show Thunderbirds, all in dyslexic friendly format.
We’ve had articles published, spoken to big publishers to encourage accessibility, and were finalists of the British Dyslexia Association’s Innovation Award in 2023. We were named East of England Small Press of the Year 2024 at the British Book Awards after just three years in business. Publishing should always be accessible. There’s no maybe about that. That’s why we made a change. And we’re proud to continue doing so.
Annabel: I was aware of dyslexia-friendly books for children, such as those from Barrington-Stoke, but was surprised to find you are the first to publish adult books in dyslexia-friendly editions. What makes a book dyslexia-friendly?
Making a book dyslexic friendly is about understanding that the words on the page
need to be processed by the reader in a different way. I spent a lot of time speaking with associations and charities about what makes the written word easier to process for someone with dyslexia. There’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach, because everyone with dyslexia will process the written word differently, but the following factors feature in all of our accessible editions:
- A larger, sans serif font, such as Verdana, which is universally easier to process than regular fonts.
- Spacing is a big factor in making our books accessible. Every letter, word, line and paragraph has increased spacing, so everything is much more open on the page, which prevents visual distress and helps processing.
- We also left justify these texts, instead of full justified like a regular novel. This prevents any abnormal spacing throughout during the design process, which again helps processing and prevents visual disturbance.
- Our accessible editions are printed on creme paper. This reduces the contrast with the black ink and so softens everything on the page, as extreme contrast is a factor that can hinder a dyslexic-reader by creating glare.
- Our changes also extend to the covers. The blurbs are formatted in the same way as the interior, and the covers are matt laminated so that under the lights in a bookshop, there is no reflection from lighting, allowing the cover to be read comfortably.
Annabel: Are all of your titles available in two formats: standard and dyslexia-friendly? Is there a big price differential between them?
Jacqui: Yes, pretty much all of our books are available in two different editions. The only exceptions are the titles where we only have the dyslexic-friendly rights, such as The Rats or the In The End series, where the standard editions are available, just not through us.
I didn’t want to say that we had accessible fiction but charge silly money for accessibility, so all of our dyslexic-friendly editions are the same price as the standard paperbacks.
Annabel: One of your latest books, The Franklin Mews has a book within the book, printed on different stock in the standard edition. How will you handle that for the dyslexia-friendly version?
Jacqui: For the most part, this will remain the same in the dyslexic-friendly edition, just with slight differences in the design, such as the scratched pages being only on the edges where there is no text. The text area will remain clear to prevent the design interfering with the processing of the words.
Designs like this are shown in advance to dyslexic readers and we use their feedback to ensure we don’t hinder the accessibility of the text.
Annabel: Tell us about your list. You have an intriguing mix of books under your roof – contemporary fiction, fantasy and horror – and then classics. Is there a typical Scorpius book? Or reader for that matter?
Jacqui: I wouldn’t really say there is a ‘typical’ Scorpius book. I’m a very eclectic reader when it comes to genres, and I know several people who are the same. While many publishers prefer to focus on one genre, I wanted Scorpius Books to be more open, especially considering our core belief around accessibility. If we had focused on just one or two genres, that accessibility would have been limited.
Our submissions are always open to authors, with or without an agent or representative, and over the years since starting, it has meant I’ve read some amazingly different manuscripts, from all genres, some of which I might not have picked up if I’d seen them in a bookshop, but which I ultimately loved, so I think there’s a good argument there for being open to all possibilities and genres!
Annabel: Scorpius Books also has strong environmental credentials, not only in the production of your books, but also your ‘Book Rescue’ scheme – tell us about that.
Jacqui: When I started Scorpius Books, I saw a lot of things wrong within the industry as a whole, mainly because it was the ‘way things have always been done’. One of the big issues I had, other than the industry not being accessible, was that despite advances in technology, it was still just so incredibly wasteful.
Printing, for example – traditionally, a publisher will print lots of copies of a new release based on an elevated estimate, mainly to reduce the cost per unit by as much as possible. On paper, that makes perfect sense from a business perspective. However, the majority of those thousands of copies don’t all get sold and, unfortunately, that’s where the industry runs into problems. Because of something called the Industry Returns Initiative (IRI), a retailer is entitled to request a full refund from the publisher for unsold copies, no matter how many there are, up to a year after the order has been placed. This means the retailer can order 3,000 copies, have those sat in a storeroom or warehouse somewhere, sell 100 of them, and then return the rest with an invoice for their money back. The publisher would have already paid out for printing, author royalties, staff, utilities, marketing, legal fees, distribution, and various other costs. Distributors are often the recipients of these returns, and they’ll then invoice the publisher to either process the books back into stock (sorting the undamaged copies, re-wrapping and packaging, etc) or to destroy and pulp them, which is often the cheaper option.
The recycling process, using various chemicals, bleaches and solvents, as well as power generated by coal and other fossil fuels is not exactly “environmentally friendly”. Every year the publishing industry destroys enough books to fill both the British Library and the Library of Congress twice—books that were never even read once. And that means about 10 million trees are killed each year for no good reason other than “that’s the way the industry does things”. It’s a shocking statistic.
So as well as trying to do smaller print runs to match demand, Scorpius Books also came up with Book Rescue, whereby any returns we do receive, which thankfully are few and far between, get resold, often at a heavy discount – especially if they are damaged in any way. I means that the books get another chance at being read and enjoyed and we don’t add to the already terrible way unread books are dealt with I the industry. We’ve also donated books to charities. Currently, we’re working on a way to make our Book Rescue a more permanent feature, and are considering expanding it out to readers, where they can return their read book to us and receive a discount on future purchases through our website. We hope this
will be an efficient and easy way to keep books out of landfill and to ensure that they’re passed on and loved.
Annabel: What’s next for Scorpius Books?
Jacqui: We have quite a few things in the pipeline at the moment, some I can’t really talk about just yet, but they will hopefully make out dyslexic books even more accessible. We also have some amazing debut authors coming really soon, as well as looking into more well-known books to create in an accessible format.
We are a finalist at the EVA awards this year as a diverse business which is amazing, and continue to be a pledge partner for the National Year of Reading 2026, where we are working hard behind the scenes to get more bookshops and libraries to stock accessible fiction, which so far has received an amazing amount of support, and we are actively looking at building more collaborations with reviewers and within the book trade for greater exposure.
We are currently working with Books By People as a launch partner publisher, which will see our future books certified as ‘human made’ and completely AI-free, from author to final printed book.
We are also in the process of building a special edition book box for our bestsellers that will only be available exclusively through us, so I’m hopeful we will have some good news about that soon!
Annabel: And finally, what books have you recently enjoyed or are looking forward to reading?
Jacqui: I wish I could find more time to read as it’s something I used to do all the time when I had to commute, but now don’t find as much time between publishing and reading submissions! The last full series I read and thoroughly enjoyed was A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, and I currently have The Divorce by Freida McFadden at the top of my TBR pile, so will be reaching for that really soon! I love a good ‘who done it’!
Annabel: Thank you Jacqui and best wishes for continued success for Scorpius Books.
Annabel is a co-founder and editor of Shiny New Books. She blogs at annabookbel.net where she has reviewed two of Scorpius Books’ recent titles – click HERE.
To buy Scorpius Books’ dyslexic friendly editions – go to their website.
