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How ISBNs Work and Why You Do Not Need Them (ebooks ftw!)

Jan 24th, 2012
by John Thomas Kooz.
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First off, before you go about getting your treasure tome novel or thousand-paged tech manual or non-fiction masterpiece decorated with ISBN’s and the like, you need to write it! I recommend self-publishing and this true gem of an article on formatting in Word</a> is exquisitely well-written, concise, and comprehensively details how to properly format an entire book written in MS Word, but that said I would highly recommend Libre Office instead as the best word-processing software. Libre Office is cross-platform, it’s free, it always works, and it’s got a seamless interface with a lot of interesting features.

But that said, another alternative to this madness is using CSS to format your “book” and put it up as a website for people to visit and browse (to which you could it set it up for them to subscribe) and/or earn off advertising. There exists extremely-well-written (“book-worthy”) articles free on the net on their own sites and the “gem formatting article” mentioned above is one of such type.

So there exist numerous options for publishing your books (be them novels, non-fiction, expository, or technical). Probably the most old-fashioned is the paper-based publishing method. This is unnecessarily expensive, clunky, obnoxious, involves dozens of people you don’t need, and take forever. Then there’s self-publishing in word or libre office and then distributing your book electronically. Finally, the way that has the most control is you format your “book” using CSS and upload it as articles to a polished site to which people could “subscribe” or upon which you could link up advertising for income. It’s important to earn from your book. You don’t want to be writing valuable work and then just chucking it up for free. I’ve done that and at first it’s delightful with a buzz of completing something great, but eventually you need to earn from it. The second option combined with the third (self-publishing to ebook) and then releasing samples in well-structured sites of your own sounds the most polished for sure!

ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number. It is a 10-digit (composed only of numbers) indicator that identifies each version of a book, the book’s publisher(s), and regional grouping. Ebooks, (the deplorable) paperbased books, and all formally published documents require an ISBN number. Like credit card numbers, certain segments of the ISBN indicate various bits of information about the published document.

These include:

  • Group or Country Identifier – identifying a cluster of geographically or regionally defined publishers
  • Publisher Identifier – which identifies a specific single publisher from the Group/Country identifier
  • Title Identifier – this identifies the specific book title, version, or format (amazingly books in, for example, .epub and .mobi formats require distinct ISBNS! But all except the Title identifier portion of the ISBN in such an instance will likely be identical if the .mobi and .epub versions are published under the same country identifier and publisher identifier.
  • Note: this is mainly for books that have already been published in paper-based format. If you publish straight to ebook, you bypass tons of this junk and often don’t need an ISBN.
  • Check Digit – the final single 0-9 digit at the end of every 10-digit ISBN that does some kind of ISBN validation.

Fast Facts About ISBNs

Processing Time. After your application is received by one of the 160 worldwide reviewing agencies, it takes about 15 days to get an ISBN.

Cost. A non-refundable service processing fee is contained on each ISBN application.

Reusing an ISBN. Once you acquire your ISBN, it can never be reused even for a different edition. Different editions require different ISBNs! A slight headache, but a useful encouraging mechanism to make your document (ebook) polished before getting an ISBN!

New ISBNs. Naturally, it’s easy to mathematically calculate how the 10-digit ISBN limit will be reached by total number of ISBNs, so a new ISBN-13 standard was created in 2007, composed of 13 digits.

BareBones Step-by-Step Process for Getting an ISBN

Fill out application.
Receive assigned ISBN.
Report ISBN to R.R. Bowker (the database for the ISBN Agency).
Submit the title information to the Books in Print database. Get a free listing in Books in Print, Words on Cassette, The Software Encyclopedia, Bowker’s Complete Video Directory, and the like. (Note receiving the ISBN and not submitting the book and ISBN to the database would be like getting the stamp and envelope and not sending it. You must manually submit the book title after receiving the ISBN.

TL;DR

  • Apply
  • Receive ISBN
  • Submit book title and ISBN to Books in Print database

ISBN Agencies
This is slightly more complex, but not too much. Regional clusters have their own main ISBN agencies. U.S. Bowker (HQed in New Jersey) receives the most title and publisher information, so in a way it is (at least quantitatively) a major source of bibliogrphic information. However, Thorpe-Bowker is the ISBN agency for places like Australia and New Zealand. Additionally, Bowker UK serves Europe, Africa, Middle East, and Asia. (so if you’re focused on aus and nz publishing, Thorpe-Bowker would be the database). This is interesting because one normally thinks of the Publisher as the “top of the food chain” in regards to document distribution, but to Bowker, publishers are customers! Interesting. Not sure if I personally like what seems to be one company having a monopoly on this. In any case, that’s crucial information for ISBN Agencies.

Things are easy once you know how to accomplish them, aren’t they?

Works Utilized

http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/isbn/us/isbnqa.asp

http://www.bowker.com/index.php/about-bowker

http://www.bowker.com/index.php/supportfaq-isbn

http://www.bowker.com/index.php/about-bowker

http://www.publishgreen.com/ebook-royalties

Posted in: "the tuesday post", factoid, literature.
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  • Stella

    “(Note receiving the ISBN and not submitting the book and ISBN to the database would be like getting the stamp and envelope and not sending it.)”
    - You are absolutely dead right about this. If you don’t ensure that you submit your ISBN and the metadata (information such as title, author, publisher, description, format, price etc) about your book to a bibliographic agency such as Bowker in the US or Nielsen in the UK then people may find it more difficult to find out about your book and you may lose sales. This goes for both printed and e-books.
    A correction though – ISBN is no longer a 10 digit number. It’s been a 13 digit number since 1 January 2007. 10 digit ISBNs are no longer valid and must no longer be used or assigned. The first 3 digits of the 13 digit ISBN are an EAN prefix. At the moment, most ISBNs will start “978″ but other prefixes will come into use.
    “Check Digit – the final single 0-9 digit at the end of every 10-digit ISBN that does some kind of ISBN validation”
    -The check digit is mathematically calculated and validates the rest of the number. It is helpful (among other things) in catching transcription errors.
    “(amazingly books in, for example, .epub and .mobi formats require distinct ISBNS!)”
    - Yes, in order that users can search for and be sure they will receive just the edition they need and which will work on their device then separate identifiers are needed in the wider supply chain. Also, some versions may include useful features to aid accessibility (such as text to speech) while others may not – to help those customers who want to find and use the accessibility functions that work best for them, separate metadata (and separate identifiers to link the metadata) are essential.
    The time it takes to get an ISBN depends on the individual national ISBN Agency arrangements – many can provide it in much less than 15 days but publishers can only apply to the ISBN Agency that operates in the country where they live.