Version 2.0 • Updated August 2026 • Estimated read time: 4.5 minutes
The reader found your book…and then she found your website.
She’d finished the audiobook in two days and wanted the next one in the series. So she went looking for you. She wanted to signup for the newsletter, get the suggested reading order, the release date for the next book. What she found was a signup form her screen reader couldn’t identify, book covers that announced nothing, and a “buy now” button that she couldn’t reach without a mouse.
She didn’t bother emailing you but she left, frustrated.
You probably never saw her in your analytics (unless you run something like hotjar or Clarity that mapped a users journey and level of page read). Regardless, there’s no metric for the reader who couldn’t get in.
Author websites are among the least examined and most consequential access points in publishing. They are where readers join newsletters, discover backlist titles, and decide whether to keep following a writer’s work.
This report documents an audit of five website platforms commonly used or recommended for author websites. Those are Pub Site, Tertulia for Authors, Squarespace, Wix, and Pixpa. Every platform reviewd produced author websites with digital accessibility failures. The audit also exampined each platform’s Terms of Service and identified a risk category I bet most authors have never considered.
The full report is available as a free download at the end of this post.
Key Findings
- All five platforms produced accessible-by-default failures. Missing alt-text, unlabeled forms, broken heading structure, and keyboard navigation gaps appeared across every platform reviewed.
- The platform built specifically for authors performed the worst on the basics. Book cover images used as navigation links and carried no alt-text whatsoever.
- One platform’s author sites returned an effectively blank page. Tertulia for Authros renders entirely through JavaScript; the initial HTML source contains only a document title.
- Only one platform, WIX, has made any sort of meaningful native investment in digital accessibility. Its published documentation still references a standard issued in 2008 (better than nothing).
- Every platform reviewed reserves the right to remove an author’s website. Four allow it without meaningful notice. One extends that authority to what authors say in public, off the platform completely.
- The web got less accessible in 2026, not more. WebAIM’s annual analysis found 95.9% of top home pages with detectable failures, reversing six consecutive years of improvement in digital accessibility.
A note on language
Most of this report uses the terms accessibility or digital accessibility – it’s the industry standard, maps to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and it’s what you’ll find if you go looking for more information.
I use a different term for the practice itself: barrier-free design. The difference is that accessibility typically describes going back or fixing what is broken while barrier-free design means not building the barrier in the first place.
The distinction matters here because nearly every failure in this audit was introduced at the design stage – a color palette chosen to match a cover, a template picked for its look, an image uploaded without a description or alt text.
Your website doesn’t have barriers because you didn’t care. I know this and you know this. Your website has barriers because nobody told you they were being built or that they even existed.
The audience is already here
Accessibility is the single most common reason listeners give for choosing audiobooks. Not convenience; but access.
More than 134 million Americans have listened to an audiobook. Dyslexia affects an extimated 20% of the population and for many of those readers, audio and text-to-speech aren’t an option but how reading works for them. This is just one example of how disability impacts reading. Roughly 25% of American’s live with some sort of disability.
These readers are buying books at record levels. The technology finally meets them where they’re at and they are excited to consume the media. Your website is often the last thing standing between your work and someone who genuinely wants it.
Why author sites fail
The structure. Author websites carry a specific pressure that many businesses don’t. That is the expectation that the site should look a certain way based on the books they write or publish. Covers are designed for shelf appeal and emotional punch. Those palettes routinely fail color contrast requirements when they become website color schemes. Templates get chosen because they match the branding, not because they work for a screen reader or the actual user.
No platform audit warns anyone about that. None of them checks for contrast issues. None requires alt text.
Meanwhile, the publishing ecosystem – publishers, agents, author organizations, et al – consistenlty tells writers to build a professional web presence. They also just as consistently say nothing about usability, digital accessibility, or building something without barriers. Authors never learn that a standard exists.
The ground is shifting beneath them whether they know it or not. WebAIM attributes 2026’s reversal partly to rising page complexity and AI-assisted development. Templates are heavier with more code being generated rather than written. The AI models are copying code from sites that don’t meet the standard. The tools that have made it easy to launch a polished looking site are the same tools introducing and reinforcing digital barriers.
The risk nobody reads
Every platform in this audit reserves the right to remove an author’s website. Four can do it without meaningful notice, for any reason, without refund.
One goes even further. Pixpa’s Terms of Use contain two separate provisions restricting what users may say about the company. One prohibits disparagement outright while another extends to public forums and third-party platforms. Under those clauses, a frustrated post in a writing group could be treated as a breach of agreement governing an author’s entire site and result in it being taken down.
Your website is the one piece of your platform that you’re supposed to own. It’s worth knowing and understanding what you actually agreed to.
The fixes are smaller than you think
Alt text on every image. Tab through your own newsletter form. Run your colors through a free contrast checker. Scan your homepage with WAVE.
These fixes may take just a few hours depending on how large (how many pages/posts/media graphics) your site is. No developer required.
The complete report includes the full audit findings for all five platforms, the Terms of Service comparison table, a 5-minute pre-launch accessibility check, and recommendations for publishers, agents, and author organizations.
To get the report, enter your email address and select the “submit” button. The PDF will automatically download to your device.
