Why the Heck Would I Need an ISBN?
Okay, so I have never actually
asked myself that question, or asked anyone else. I have always known what an ISBN is since I
was old enough to understand that every book had one. It is that long number that every printed
book has, somewhere on the book cover and on the page inside the front cover
listing the copyrights.
Yes, there is more to it than
that, but that is all I knew and all I needed to know as a lover of reading
books that I had always only picked up off the shelf of a library or used bookstore,
at a charity run used book sale, or at a garage sale. That’s how book lovers feed their reading
addiction when they don’t have any money.
I spent years playing at writing before ever becoming seriously involved
in actually considering publication as a goal.
There was a lot I did not know, and there is still a lot I need to
learn. Being an author, and a published
one, is a never-ending journey of learning.
Just when you think you are getting there, the landscape of publishing
changes and you have new things to learn.
For today, the focus is on
ISBNs.
All books have them, but why? What are those ISBN numbers on the copyright
page and book jacket of every book for?
ISBN stands for International
Standard Book Number.
We should get one thing clear
first. Getting an ISBN is not copyrighting your work. The ISBN has
nothing to do with copyrights and does not guarantee your copyright rights.
The ISBN serves one purpose
only – it is a marketing tool. The ISBN
is a catalogue number.
Is an ISBN necessary? By
my research, absolutely not. At least, not if your publishing
intentions are very limited. You can
even epublish on some sites without an ISBN; however it limits your markets.
If you are just going to get a
few dozen or a hundred copies of your book printed at a printing company (note
I say “printing company”, not “vanity press”.
They are two very different kinds of businesses, and for this purpose I
would recommend using a printing service that promises only to create a printed
product and nothing else) to give to family and friends, or share them in ebook
form through emails or on your blog, then the ISBN is unnecessary.
If you plan to publish through
a publishing company or self-publish, in print or ebook, and sell your book in
the hope of selling many copies, then you will probably need an ISBN.
If a publisher picks up your book
they’ll look after the ISBN.
If you decide to self-publish
you’ll need to get one yourself.
Some Ebook sites and
self-publishing print services, including Amazon,
won’t let you put your book up on their site without an ISBN number. And
that goes whether you are charging $6.99 for your book, $0.99, or offering it
for free.
Smashwords will
allow you to put your book on their site without an ISBN, but they recommend
having one. Sony and Apple require
ISBN’s. I recommend reading Smashwords’
information on ISBNs before deciding whether to use their free one or get your
own. Note: Smashwords’ free ISBN has
Smashwords as the registered publisher and should not be used anywhere else. In other words, you would need a separate
ISBN number for Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc, rather than to use the free
one provided by Smashwords for those sites.
Some of those sites may required their own ISBN number anyway, listing
them as the publisher.
Special note: being listed on the ISBN records as the
publisher does NOT make them the publisher.
It just means they are the entity who paid for and registered the ISBN
number.
If you are using any kind of a
self-publishing printing service or vanity press, they will likely have an
option to include the ISBN as part of their services. But before you go ahead and take their ISBN
number you need to answer one question.
Who do you want listed as the publisher?
The printing service or vanity press will most likely be listed as the
publisher for the ISBN they provide you.
If you want yourself to be listed as the publisher you have to get the
ISBN yourself.
What is an ISBN?
ISBN – International Standard Book Number
This basically is just
assigning a catalogue number to a book.
The ISBN is broken down into
parts.
EAN – Bookland country code. Apparently books live in a
world of their own separate from ours called “Bookland”. In the land of
books, this identifies what country the book comes from. Luckily for us
non-book beings, the numbers also coincide with the countries of our own world.
Group – identifies the
language the book is written in
Publisher – identifies the publisher of the book (aka the person
or business who filed the ISBN number for the book)
* oddly enough, it seems that when a publisher exhausts its block of ISBNs,
instead of receiving an additional block with the same publisher identifying
number, they are given a new identifying number for the new block of
ISBNs. I don’t know why this is.
Title – identifies the book
title
Check Digit – this is akin to a spell check for the people
assigning ISBNs. If this number is not what they are looking for, then an
error was made.
What the ISBN does is it
simplifies a retailer’s search for a particular book. Making it easier to
find your book instead of, say, the same title by another author will
make the difference on getting that sale.
You will also need a separate
ISBN number for each edition of a book: one for hardcover, one for
paperback, and one for ebook.
If you do minor typographical
corrections it is considered a reprint and new ISBNs are not necessary.
If there are major changes,
additions, or deletions, then you are publishing a new edition of the book and
need a whole new set of ISBNs.
Obtaining the ISBN
Of course, how you obtain your
ISBN and what it costs depends entirely on where you are located.
In the United States,
ISBN’s are sold by a commercial company.
Naturally, they charge accordingly. After all, they aren’t doing it
simply to be kind. After getting your ISBN, it is up to you to have it
registered with RR Bowker, the
database for the ISBN agency. www.bowkerlink.com
If you plan to publish a lot,
it’s much cheaper per ISBN to get a block of them instead of just one. Once you have them, you can use them as your
books are published, registering the book information at that time.
In Canada, the Canadian
government offers the ISBN for free. Isn’t this just a wonderful
country to live in? Okay, it’s a perk
that Canadians enjoy, but it doesn’t make the rest of publishing easier.
Typically, publishers will
obtain blocks of ISBNs at a time because of the cost. This includes small
presses and indy publishers, self publishing services, and vanity presses. In most cases, you can get that ISBN included
when you have your book published with them.
It may even be a requirement.
Come and Get Your Free ISBNs!
Some organizations may offer
“free” ISBNs or an ISBN as part of a printing package. One source said
that even Bowker, the company in the U.S. where publishers get their ISBN
numbers from, offers free individual ISBNs. However, I haven’t found the Bowker link to
confirm this.
AUTHOR BE WARNED: While it might not cost you a dime for that free ISBN,
you are in fact giving up having your own name listed as the publisher.
It
sounds pretty dire, doesn’t it? That is
exactly the tone I got from some articles I read on ISBNs. But it is a tone I disagree with.
You
will still be listed on the book as the author.
You are the author and nobody can take that away. If someone listed themselves as the author of
your book, that makes you either a paid ghostwriter by choice, or a victim of plagiarism. But that is a topic for another day. You just won’t be listed as the publisher in
the records for the ISBN number. This is
a distinction that may be completely unimportant to you since very few people
will actually look up your ISBN number to find out who the publisher on record is. It’s much easier to just read the publisher
name on the copyright page at the beginning of the book.
Not
being listed as the publisher is entirely to be expected when dealing with an
actual paying publisher. After all, they are the publisher while you are
the author, and nowhere in the ISBN is there a number specific to the author of
the book.
Publishers are
buying the publishing rights to your book, paying you royalties, and will list
themselves as the publisher of note.
However,
if you are self publishing or publishing through a vanity press (best to be
avoided), or through a self-publishing service (different from a vanity press),
and are trying to brand yourself as such, then you will probably want to be
listed as the publisher. However, when
it comes down to it and nobody except the ISBN people ever see that, it
probably really doesn’t matter.
When
an organization or individual obtains a block of ISBNs, the publisher digits
will be assigned to that organization or individual and are non-transferable. As I said before, however, being listed in
the ISBN records as the publisher really just identifies the company or person
who has filed the ISBN, regardless whether they are the actual publishing
house, self-published individual, or a publishing provider like Amazon filing
on behalf of a publisher or self-published author.
That
means, even though you are self-publishing, it will forever be noted in the
annals of history within the offices of the ISBN people, aka the records likely
no one else will ever see, that for that particular ISBN number XYZ Publisher
is the publisher of that book and not you.
Chances are you may end up with multiple ISBN numbers listing various
companies as the ‘publisher’ if you a publishing on multiple platforms like
Smashwords, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.
On
the bright side, you can go through the entire process to get a new ISBN for
your book any time you want.
So,
while some may argue that you should never to let your self-published book be
listed as published by anyone but you on the ISBN records, it really doesn’t
matter beyond a personal preference. All
your readers will see is an ISBN number like this, and will never see the
information on the paperwork filed away in some dusty filing cabinet:
ISBN 978-1-63066-051-2
(This particular
ISBN happens to be for
Where the Bodies
Are print edition
published by
Second Wind Publishing, LLC.
But you would
never know that from just the number)
ISSN – International Standard Serial Number
This is the same
thing as the ISBN, but is for periodical publications (ongoing series), such as
magazines or a book series.
Sources for this article
include:
