ISBNs - Establishing Identity

Having chosen your publishing name, the next thing you will probably need to consider is purchasing a batch of ISBN numbers. Look on the back of any current book and you will see, in the right hand corner, a barcode with a 13 digit ISBN number embedded in it. ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number and it uniquely identifies books and similar products such as CDs, DVDs, etc.

Each ISBN is unique to a specific publisher, title, edition and format, and makes it easier for everyone in the distribution chain, including book stores and libraries a consistent way to identify your particular book. If you publish your book in more than one format, eg paperback and hardback, you will need to identify each version separately so will use a different ISBN for each.

In the US, ISBN numbers a issued by RR Bowker. As a UK self-publisher, I purchased mine from the Nielsen UK ISBN Agency (http://www.isbn.nielsenbook.co.uk/). An ISBN number establishes you as a publisher. If you choose to publish your book for a fee through a so-called ‘self-publishing’ company, it is they that own the ISBN and the barcode and therefore, they, not you are the publisher of your book.

ISBNs are issued in blocks of 10, 100, 1000 and 10,000. It is not possible to buy lesser quantities from Nielsen, and if you really get bitten by the self-publishing bug, you’ll find you use ten much quicker than you think. At present, a batch of ten ISBN numbers costs just £107.18 each – less than £10.75 each! Some 'self-publishing companies' will charge you a small fortune for an ISBN and make it sound as if they spend lots of time submitting it to Barnes & Noble, Amazon, etc on your behalf. I will write about how to submit your new title in a future blog and how this one submission will do all the listings for you.

Within 10 days of purchasing your ISBNs, you will receive a list of numbers, both by email in Excel format and in hard form. The ISBN is divided into five parts which are separated by hyphens. The parts following the prefix (978 or 979-) are made up of:

Registration Group Element : Identifies a national, geographic or language grouping of publishers. It tells you where in the world the Publisher is physically based. Registrant (Publisher) Element : Identifies a specific publisher or imprint .Publication Element : Identifies a specific edition of a specific title in a specific format. Check Digit : This is always and only the final digit which mathematically validates the rest of the number which is calculated using a Modulus 10 system with alternate weights of 1 and 3.

The ISBN should be printed in text form, such as ISBN 1-2345-678-9X on the verso page (the back of the title page, where the copyright information is also typically printed) and also a long with a bar code should appear on the back cover of the book or dust jacket.
There is actually no formal legal requirement in the UK or Republic of Ireland for your book to carry a ISBN number, it is simply a product identification number. However, if you wish to sell your publication through major bookselling chains, or internet booksellers, they will require you to have an ISBN to assist their internal processing and ordering systems. The ISBN also provides access to Bibliographic Databases such as BookData Online, which are organised using ISBNs as references. (Sign up at www.bowkerlink.com to list your books). These databases are used by booksellers and libraries to provide detailed information about your book for customers, giving you an additional marketing tool which could help promote sales.

Choosing a Publishing Name

Having made the bold/ reckless/ stupid* (delete according to your opinion) decision to self-publish, one of the first things I needed to consider was a publishing name. One thing to keep in mind when choosing a name for a publishing company is the type of books you will publish. Tinkerbelle Books might be a great name for a publisher of children’s books, but it would not be a good name if you were publishing self-help manuals.

As my first children's book starred my tabby Samson, who was already something of a local celebrity, it seemed natural to name my 'company' (a grand term for one person and a cat!) after him. I googled both "Samson Publishing" and "Samson Press" and found that the names were already taken. A little more googling and Samson found himself the proud President of 'Tabby Cat Press.' The logo followed later and is cut from one of the last photos ever taken of him before the cancer made him sick.

My Road to Self-Publishing

It is almost 5 years now since Canadian author, Giovanna Lagana, first contacted me and asked whether I would be interested in illustrating a couple of educational children's books. Would I! - it had been an ambition since schooldays. Just 10 weeks later, and lots of to-ing and fro-ing with a e-book publisher, signing contracts, etc, the illustrations were complete. There followed a year long wait before we saw the final ebook and it went live. Then, nothing, zilch, nada.

We enquired after sales figures a few times but were told that there had been none. We knew this couldn't be right as we had both purchased the ebook ourselves under different names. Another year went by and still nothing so we pulled the ebook off the site and continued looking for publishers with the dream of one day seeing the story in print. This year, we discovered several sites where the ebook was offered in its entirety, free of charge. This proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that sales had been made and where we could, we contacted the sites to notify them that they were breaching our copyright. Lesson one.

Meanwhile, I had got a taste for book illustration and was eager for another project. "The Adventures of Sailor Sam" pretty much wrote itself. My handsome tabby, Samson (already a local celebrity) was only too happy to model for me and I drafted in family and friends to play the human characters. The story was rejected by several publishers. I was thrilled to receive a letter from Dorrance Publishing accepting the story but the jubilation was short-lived as the letter went on to say that it would be illustrated in black and white by their in-house illustrators and I would be charged around $4,000 for the privilege. Strange I didn't see any figures like that when I answered the call for submissions! Lesson two.

So, I decided to self-publish and after much internet-browsing, chose a 'self-publisher' which seemed affordable and certainly much cheaper than most. I know now that these 'self-publishers' are actually vanity-presses and on the whole are best avoided. I learnt the hard way and don't wish to recount all the hurt and stress caused. I chose to draw a line under the whole incident, walk away and start afresh. Lesson three.

The following year, my 40th birthday, I decided to turn things around. I purchased a batch of 10 ISBN numbers (I'll talk about them in a later blog), researched 'Print on Demand,' spent months trying to get to grips with Adobe Indesign, and preparing a book for print. It was a steep learning curve but at the end, I was proud to be able to say, "I did it all myself." The Adventures of Sailor Sam was republished in October 2007. Since then, I have published three other books, including a print version of the original Rickie the Raccoon story.

Finally Making Some Headway

http://www.thechildrensbookreview.com/weblog/2009/07/rickie-the-raccoon-learns-about-recycling-giovanna-lagana.html

Giovanna sent me this link to a great review of "Rickie the Raccoon Learns about Recycling". She has also received some lovely comments from Canadian authors Robert Munsch and David Bouchard. After almost four years of being disappointed or cheated by various publishers, it is really gratifying to at last be receiving some kind of recognition for our work. I was really thrilled when I received my first copy of the completed book. It looked so much better than I had imagined and just goes to show what you can achieve with a lot of hard-work and a willingness to learn. I certainly have no regrets about choosing the self-publishing route.