All About ISBNs by Lisa Nowak (Running Wide Open)

Some Housekeeping stuff


1) Yikes - I almost forgot to announce the winner(s) of lurker day contest and books are the following lurkers drawn randomly...


Julianna - 
Rachele Alpine
Yat Yee
Amber Cuadra
Tricia OBrien


Congrads and email me your address and whether you want middle grade or young adult and I'll give you a couple to choose from. Thank for coming out to say hi and I hope to see you all again :)


2) In case you haven't heard, my Untraceable Official Blog tour has started and I've had a few stops:

• Nov 13 - Readinista (Exciting YA books of Nov 2011)
• Nov 14th - Lori Lee on (What makes a good book signing) and Kriston Johnson (Getting to know the author/ Review)
• Nov 15th - Kelly Polark (The Beats of Writing - using music)
• Nov 16th - Karly Kirkpatrick (Guest post on Author Journey)

Now here is Lisa on EVERYTHING You need to know about ISBNs and why to get them.

Some Facts about ISBNs: A Guest Post by Lisa Nowak

Lisa is the author of Running Wide Open, the first book in the Full Throttle series. The second book, Getting Sideways, will be released after Thanksgiving. http://lisanowak.wordpress.com/  http://amzn.to/RWOAmazon

Cody Everett has a temper as hot as the flashpoint of racing fuel, and it's landed him at his uncle's trailer, a last-chance home before military school. But how can he take the guy seriously when he calls himself Race, eats Twinkies for breakfast, and pals around with rednecks who drive in circles every Saturday night?

What Cody doesn't expect is for the arrangement to work. Or for Race to become the friend and mentor he's been looking for all his life. But just as Cody begins to settle in and get a handle on his supercharged temper, a crisis sends his life spinning out of control. Everything he's come to care about is threatened, and he has to choose between falling back on his old, familiar anger or stepping up to prove his loyalty to the only person he's ever dared to trust.

____________________

There’s a lot of confusion about ISBNs, so I considered myself fortunate when I got the opportunity to attend a presentation that covered them in depth. The information presented was both useful and interesting. Here are some of the things I learned:

Whoever owns or provides the ISBN for a book is the publisher. If you allow CreateSpace or Smashwords to assign an ISBN, they’re listed as the publisher with Bowker, who distributes such information to retailers. If you secure the ISBN yourself, you’re considered the publisher (even if you use Smashwords to upload the book).

An ISBN is necessary if someone is going to take orders for your book. The exception is distributors like Amazon.com because they have their own numbering system. However it’s wise to have an ISBN for those books, too. It makes you look more professional. Some distributors, like Smashwords, will give you the option of getting your ISBN from them, however you can still use your own.

ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number. You can get them at Myidentifiers.com https://www.myidentifiers.com/index.php?ci_id=1479 or go directly through Bowker.com. http://bowker.com/

 

This is an ISBN 10.

The 1^st number is the group number and will be 0 or 1 in English-speaking countries.

The 2^nd number defines the publisher. This number will be smaller for very large publishers who handle a great number of books, and larger for small publishers who handle only a few books.

The 3^rd number is the item number. This number will be larger for very small publishers who handle only a few books, and smaller for large publishers who handle a great number of books.

The 4th number is the check number. If for some reason the other data is mis-entered, this number will show up as incorrect. This is a bit confusing, but I think it’s an indicator that the person handling the numbers needs to check for mistakes.

The number of digits in the publisher number reflects the size of the publisher.

Item #                           Number of Publishers             

6 digits                                     20

5 digits                                     500

4 digits                                     1,500

3 digits                                     5,000

2 digits                                     50,000

1 digit                                       500,000

By looking at the ISBN, a knowledgeable person can tell the size of a publishing company.

ISBN 13 was developed in January 2007. It adds an EAN Country Code to the ISBN. An EAN is a 13-digit European Article Number, though it’s now called an International Article Number even though the acronym begins with an “E”. It’s basically an international UPC code and it’s used for other products than just books.

With an EAN, the first 3 digits represent the country where the company is registered, but not necessarily where the product is made. Numbers between 000-019 refer to the US and Canada. However, books have their own special code. The EAN Country Code in an ISBN is “978” which refers to an imaginary country called “Bookland”. And you thought this was going to be boring. :)

ISBNs 

1 = $125

10 = $250

100 = $575

1000 = $1000

Once you’ve finished your book, go to Bowkerlink.com or MyIdentifiers.com and fill out a form that identifies you as a publisher. When you begin publishing, start an account where you can fill out the information that will become the metadata for the book. This is information that will appear to booksellers, readers, etc. to list the author, title, publisher, and so forth. You can see this info for yourself in the shareware file conversion program, Calibre. It doesn’t really matter which site you use, as the MyIdentifier data will flow into Bowker. Also, your password and ID will get you into both sites.

Once you’ve assigned an ISBN to a book you can’t undo it. You can make minor changes to correct spelling and so forth, but if you’re releasing a new issue, or making major revisions you need to use a new ISBN. You also can’t reuse an ISBN for another book.

If you have any problems figuring out how to work with your ISBN, you can call Bowker and they’ll walk you through it step-by step.

You can also get all-in-one barcodes that include UPC, ISBN and pricing from Bowker. They’re $25 each and are sent to you as a JPEG to put on the back cover. (Obviously this doesn’t include the original cost of the ISBN.)

The ISBN identifies only one iteration of a title. If you’re doing a hardcover, paperback, audio book and ebook, you need separate ISBNs. According to Bowker, each different format of an ebook also needs its own ISBN. That means one for Mobi (Kindle) and one for ePub (Nook and most others). I also use a separate one for Smashwords just to be safe.

If you buy a block of 100 ISBNS and use 40, you can sell the other 60. However, whoever you sell them to will be considered the publisher of all 100, so be careful about this.

If you want to buy more ISBNs the publisher number will be different, but they’ll still be assigned to you or your company as a publisher.

You can do an ISBN search at bookwire.com. http://bookwire.com/

 YOu can follow Lisa on Twitter or at her Blog.

ebook eXperiment: Those pesky little ISBNs!

**Sorry about the late post - my son was sick today!** Thanks for the little notes and tweets asking me when I was posting today! It's nice to be missed. :)


This week

• Budget hasn't changed ---yet.
• I am working to get book to copyedits - people who signed up for the ebook tour should get their review copy the week of Oct 17th which gives you 6 weeks to read.
• Oh yeah - and I'm much more scared this week, wondering if I made a huge mistake in doing this or that it is going to fail but trying to ignore those thoughts. THIS IS HARD WORK! Definitely not the easy way out!

Because I have gotten asked about paperbacks - I am looking in it. The more I looked into libraries and schools - the more I realized they don't all have access to ebooks. Question is how - Lightning source or Createspace?


I'll talk more about that next week. Buy yay!


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Today I want to talk about ISBNs b/c I am still figuring these little stinkers out, but here is what I know (or think I know) so far:


Why do you need one? 

• Your book and you appear more professional. Think of them like business cards. You don't need one, but if you don't have one - you may not appear credible.
• They stay with the book for life.
• The distribution is wider especially with schools and libraries. That is how most of them order books so you are cutting out your market if you don't get one.
• It's best to buy ISBNs in blocks of 10, 100 etc - that way you can use them for other books or when publishing new editions that have changed.

What do the 13 digits mean?

• A "978" prefix
• A group or country identifier;
• The publisher identifier; (This is you!)
• The title identifier, which is for a particular title or edition;
• A "check digit" at the end, which validates the ISBN

Tips:

• You do not need one for Amazon. They assign their own number. ASIN
• You do not need one for Barnes and Noble. They assign their own number.
• You do need one for iTunes/iBooks.
• If you use Smashwords, they can assign one for their customers. But I believe it is only good for Smashwords. You can get a free one and list Smashwords as publisher or you can be a premium member and pay 10$ for your own.
• You have to have a different ISBN for different formats - so ebook formats would each need 1 and paperback would be another.
• Make sure it is 13 digits (not 10) - most places require 13.
• You can buy them from Bowker or isbn.org - 10 costs about $275.
• Even when you have an ISBN - you must register them at Bowker. 
• A self pub ISBN has a number that identifies it as an indie/self pub book so bookstores know when they see it.
• ISBN goes on the copyright page. And above the scan code on a physical book.
• If you want a library to order - you will also need a LCCN.
• You need an ISBN for each ebook file you publish (epub, etc) - I'm still trying to figure out what this means. So now I think I have to buy 10.
• On some books you may see a 10 digit ISBN and a 13 digit - They changed the format a few years ago and kept both identifiers.

So basically if I do ebook and B&N, Amazon, and Smashwords. I will need ISBNs (again I think they are important) for each format as well as for paperback. 


So looks like I'm going to have to add about $275 to my budget? Sigh.

If you have any additional tips or clarifications - let me know!