Publishers of children’s books are set to face stricter product tests under new changes to legislation that mean they will have to test for 11 more chemicals than before.

According to a report by theBookSeller.com, this poses a greater challenge for publishers across the UK as they are already competing with an increasingly dominant digital platform.

The changes coming into effect regard the EN71 Part Three standard, with children’s books and products to be tested for a total of 19 chemicals for next summer.

Safety and compliance representative from Imago Publishing Debbie Knight told the news provider: “It is becoming very complex to make certain kinds of books at a time when publishers want to make their books more interesting in order to compete with digital formats.”

Product safety manager at Egmonth Kristina Croser added that publishers might experience resistance from suppliers, who could be reticent about sharing what publishers need to test for.

Meanwhile, Nielsen Book president Jonathan Nowell recently revealed UK print fiction sales declined 26 per cent in the first four weeks of 2012.

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