Building Writerly Resources: Richard Reiman and Imagination Storybooks

By Susan Wroble, October 2023

“Reiman,” Richard says, “and it rhymes with demon.” But Richard Reiman, founder of Imagination Storybooks and a member of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of SCBWI, is no demon. Instead, he’s something of a wizard—his motto is “Be Part of the Magic!” In 2019, he created and developed an organization whose purpose is to make picture books fully accessible to the more than eight million children (in the United States alone) who are blind, deaf, neurodiverse or face special learning challenges. Now, those children are being denied access to children’s illustrated books.

Richard’s mission? Fully accessible books. Imagination Storybooks is a new canvas for children’s accessibility and inclusion.

Richard has a long history of volunteering for the disabled community. He’s recorded books for Learning Ally, and served as a guide for blind skiers. When he learned that there were few books accessible to blind and deaf children, he set out to do something about it. In his research, he learned that about 90% of children who are blind or visually impaired are not learning Braille—they are mainstreamed in schools, and rely primarily on audiobooks.

Richard, whose eyesight is fading, knew how much was lost with picture books when you can only hear the story and miss seeing all of the illustrations. That’s where audio descriptions come in. Because picture books are reliant on illustrations, these descriptions by professional audio describers narrate all that is happening within the illustrations. By changing pictures into words, they make the art accessible.

Imagination Storybooks have layers of accessibility supports designed to meet a variety of needs:

• A video that includes all the pages of the original book,
• professional audio recording
• Closed captioning,
• ASL Translation,
• Audio Descriptions and
• Downloadable Braille files.

Winnie the Pooh was one of the first major books that Imagination Storybooks has made accessible, using a combination of Kindle and Audiobook. They are currently producing about a book a week, and in the process providing opportunities for blind and low-vision voice actors. The ASL interpretation is produced by the Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP), a program funded by the Department of Education, and is then incorporated into the Imagination Storybook video. The organization had immediate support following their founding from the Library of Congress, and the books are distributed through the National Library for the Blind. In the future, Imagination Storybooks will be offered in more than 150 different languages.

For Picture Book Creators who would like to make their books accessible, the first step is to retain or obtain the audio and video rights to their intellectual property, or work with your publisher to agree to have the book produced in an Imagination Storybook version. Imagination Storybooks usually works with traditionally published books by smaller publishers and with self-published creators. Richard has found that when large traditional publishers hold these rights, they have typically been unwilling to make the books accessible, although he is working within the industry to change that. The cost per book is around $800. While no royalties can come from the fully accessible books, creators can potentially see royalties on the audiobook portion.

Richard can be reached at Richard@imaginationstorybooks.org He is happy to be part of blogs and podcasts. By spreading the word, you too can be part of that magic.