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.