WHAT ARE ISBNS?
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Whenever we go into our local book store and pick up any book we tend to flip it over and read the ‘blurb’ on its back cover and we do it pretty much automatically. Scanning to the bottom to check the price you’ll also see the books barcode and ISBN, you will have seen these so frequently that it is easy to pay them no attention what-so-ever, they become a part of the book cover design but what are they made up of?
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The ISBN is a thirteen digit number, it stands for International Standard Book Number (on magazines you’ll find an ISSN ‘International Standard Serial Number’ instead) , these numbers give a unique address for the publication, publisher along with the title and where it geographically originated from (no ISBN or ISSN are the same, they are unique). This originally started off as a book keeping number and came from the UK back in the 1970’s, their design is such that a reader could find the exact book they wanted without fear of ordering someone else’s work that happened to have the same cover title.
If an author is looking to distribute and sell their book through bookstores, Amazon, libraries and other commercial outlets then they will need to obtain an ISBN (if the book is for a personal portfolio, a gift, promotional item or anything other than for retail purposes then no ISBN is needed). A new ISBN is also needed if the work is revised (that includes the content and the design of the book), different versions of the book also need to have separate ISBNs too (eg: paper back, hard cover, audio etc). ISBN’s are sold to publishers in blocks of 10, 100, 1000 & 10,000 to obtain one for a new book you need to register yourself as a publisher via an ISBN agency of your geographic area.
For a long time Bowker issued the ISBNs to publishers (for a small charge) but as technology grew and the option of self-publishing became more widely available, Bowker made it easier but more expensive to buy them. Individual numbers can cost about $125 each and you’ll need to take in to account that you will need two of them (eBook and printed book).
But hang on, some of the POD services will give you an ISBN free of charge, how do they do this? Well the bigger self-publishing companies will purchase them in such large numbers that they essentially pay about $1 for each one, at this cost they can afford to give them away for free to each author.
So why would you pay? Buying an ISBN will list you as the publishing company in the records of the book, it also allows you to control the meta-data for the book and so enable greater control in making your book more visible via the search engines.
Along with the printed ISBN on the back of a book you’ll see the more familiar barcode at the bottom of the book cover design, normally made up of two barcodes (a standard size barcode and a smaller one next to it), the larger of the two represents the book’s ISBN & the smaller one being the EAN code. The EAN code is the European Article Number for the book, this gives the world-wide standardization in the sale and handling of all retail products, it gives the retailer the details of the cost of the book.
If an author is looking to distribute and sell their book through bookstores, Amazon, libraries and other commercial outlets then they will need to obtain an ISBN (if the book is for a personal portfolio, a gift, promotional item or anything other than for retail purposes then no ISBN is needed). A new ISBN is also needed if the work is revised (that includes the content and the design of the book), different versions of the book also need to have separate ISBNs too (eg: paper back, hard cover, audio etc). ISBN’s are sold to publishers in blocks of 10, 100, 1000 & 10,000 to obtain one for a new book you need to register yourself as a publisher via an ISBN agency of your geographic area.
For a long time Bowker issued the ISBNs to publishers (for a small charge) but as technology grew and the option of self-publishing became more widely available, Bowker made it easier but more expensive to buy them. Individual numbers can cost about $125 each and you’ll need to take in to account that you will need two of them (eBook and printed book).
But hang on, some of the POD services will give you an ISBN free of charge, how do they do this? Well the bigger self-publishing companies will purchase them in such large numbers that they essentially pay about $1 for each one, at this cost they can afford to give them away for free to each author.
So why would you pay? Buying an ISBN will list you as the publishing company in the records of the book, it also allows you to control the meta-data for the book and so enable greater control in making your book more visible via the search engines.
Along with the printed ISBN on the back of a book you’ll see the more familiar barcode at the bottom of the book cover design, normally made up of two barcodes (a standard size barcode and a smaller one next to it), the larger of the two represents the book’s ISBN & the smaller one being the EAN code. The EAN code is the European Article Number for the book, this gives the world-wide standardization in the sale and handling of all retail products, it gives the retailer the details of the cost of the book.
