One of the areas that I get the most questions about is the use of the ISBN, the unique numeric identifier that’s used around the world to identify books. New self-publishers are especially concerned with making sure their books are registered properly, that everything is done so that their book can be sold without any problems or confusion.
Because this area is specific to the book business, there’s a lot of confusion and misinformation about ISBN and how it works. I strongly recommend you use the resources provided by Bowker, the company resposible for ISBNs in the United States, on the ISBN website and at Bowker’s website.
But even faster, without any further delay, here are 20 answers to the most commonly-asked questions about ISBN.
Questions and Answers about ISBN
- What is an ISBN?
ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number. It is a 13-digit number that’s used as a unique identifier for books. ISBN is used internationally. - What do all the numbers mean?
See my earlier article on decoding the ISBN. - Why do we need ISBNs?
We need them to identify each book that is published, and each edition of the same book. ISBN also identifies the publisher of the book. It is the standard ID number used to identify books by booksellers, libraries, book wholesalers and distributors. - Should I get an ISBN?
If you plan to sell your book in bookstores, to libraries, or through online retailers like Amazon.com, you will need an ISBN. - Does a book have to be published to have an ISBN?
ISBNs are issued to publishers, who then assign them to individual books. This can be done at any time, even before the book is written. - Is the ISBN the bar code I see on the back of books?
The bar code is a representation of the ISBN in a form that can be identified by scanners. The bar code might also have other information embedded in it, like the price of the book and the currency in which it is priced. - Okay, do I need to have a bar code too?
Only if you plan to sell your book in bookstores. If you only plan to sell online, or privately like at speaking engagements, you don’t need a bar code. Many publishers put them on their books anyway. - If I get an ISBN, does that mean my book is copyrighted?
No, ISBN is administered by a private company for the use of the international book trade. Copyright is administered by the Library of Congress and is an extension of intellectual property law. - If I have an ISBN, does that mean my book will be in Books in Print?
Once you have an ISBN you can go to BowkerLink to fill out the forms necessary for your book to be listed in Books in Print. - Can self-publishers get an ISBN?
A self-publisher is still a publisher, so yes, you just apply for an ISBN like anyone else. - How do I get an ISBN?
Go to myidentifiers.com, the ISBN website run by Bowker, which is the only company authorized to administer the ISBN program in the United States. Click on “ISBN Identifiers” and you’ll be taken to a page where you can buy 1, 10, 100 or 1000 ISBNs. - How many ISBNs should I buy?
The least economical choice is to buy 1 ISBN. If you ever publish another edition of your book, or another book entirely, you will need more than one ISBN. I suggest you buy the 10 pack. - What do ISBNs cost?
A single ISBN today costs $125, while 10 ISBNs cost $250, 100 cost $575 and 1000 cost $1000. Note that the price per ISBN drops from $125 to $25 to $5.75 to $1. - Isn’t it just a number? Why does a number cost $125?
Many people are pondering this question, so far without an answer. Obviously, it’s not because of the cost of the product. Could there be another reason? - Well, can I re-use my ISBN?
No, sorry, once assigned to a book, an ISBN can never be reused. - Where do I put the ISBN?
You’ll print it on the copyright page, and it’s included in the Cataloging-in-Publication data block, if you use one. Otherwise, just print it on the copyright page and, of course, on the back cover as part of the bar code. - I’m doing a print book and an ebook. Do I need two ISBNs, or can I use the same one?
This is a matter of some discussion at the moment, since there are more and more electronic formats. The policy of assigining a separate ISBN to each and every edition is under review. Check back for more info. - How about a hardcover and a softcover of the same book?
You need a separate ISBN for each edition, to identify them for everyone who might want to find them in directories, catalogs and databases. - If I revise my book, do I need to give it a new ISBN?
If you only correct typographical errors, and don’t make any substantial changes to the text, you don’t need a new ISBN because it’s considered a reprint. A new edition would contain substantially new material, a major revision, or the addition of completely new elements. Anything that makes it a new book is likely to create a new edition and, therefore, need a new ISBN. - How about if I just change the cover?
You can continue to use the same ISBN, since the text has not changed.
Well, there you have it. In 20 questions and about 5 minutes, you’ve overcome the confusion about ISBN. Have a question you didn’t see answered here? Ask in the comments and we’ll run down the answer.
Takeaway: Getting the ISBN for your new publishing company is a necessary step to becoming a publisher and getting your book into print correctly. It’s not difficult once you understand how to do it.
{ 74 comments… read them below or add one }
Brilliant! This is yet another quality contribution to indie publishers. I wish I’d read this article back in 2006 when I published my second and third books.
I made a terrible mistake then and bought ISBNs from a third party who were offering them at a much lower price. What I didn’t realise, not understanding the structure of ISBNs (and this company didn’t say anything on their website to help me understand this) was that, of course, they would be identified as the publisher of the book. So these novels, which I wrote, printed, and bound by myself were credited to “Aardvark Global Publishing”. Yuck.
The US ISBN agency clarified (rather snarkily), “Essentially what you’ve done is buy a driver’s licence on the street-corner. It’s somebody’s — but not yours!”
Since then, I’ve published a fourth book and bought a block of ISBNs through the official channel (*cough*MONOPOLY*cough*), so I had lots of ISBNs to spare, and have now submitted these two books for registration with Nielsen Book Data, the UK ISBN agency (that US firm should also not have issued ISBNs for my UK-published titles). Now I’m waiting for Nielsen’s glacial process to accept these books so I can re-issue them under my imprint.
So my warning is “If it’s cheap, there’s a reason”. It’s a total racket, having to deal with one exclusive company for ISBNs, but it’s still the best — the only — way to go.
You can find the official ISBN agency for your area here:
http://www.isbn-international.org/agency
And if you’re designing your own cover, you can generate a print-ready barcode of your ISBN here:
http://www.tux.org/~milgram/bookland/
Hi Thanks Just about to make the same mistakes but you have put me back on track will pass on your tips. UK
Hamish,
Thanks for your comment and the helpful links. Since I rarely have cause to address books published outside the US, I really appreciate the help for international readers.
And of course you are completely correct, although I didn’t address it in this article: in most cases you should get your own ISBNs so your book isn’t forever identified with a subsidy press.
I am going to self publish my book and have signed up with a couple different subsidy publishers. I am young and just trying to publish a book for my senior project, thought a bit of recognition/sales would of course be fantastic.
I got a free ISBN from Lulu, createspace, and am also considering publishing with outskirtspress. All these companies say you can publish with multiple companies at once because YOU own your work, they don’t. So if each has a different ISBN but it’s the same book, only with a different cover or typeset, that doesn’t matter right?
Kyla, I’m not sure what you hope to gain by using lots of different printers, it seems to me like it will end up costing you more and confusing people who want to order the book. For instance, if Amazon wants a copy of your book, who will they order it from?
I’ve decided not to go with outskirts press for my first time publishing- and I’m using the barebones Lulu service which is free, so it will only be sold in the Lulu Marketplace and not Amazon; and createspace, which is affiliated with Amazon [if there was confusion I'd think they would order from this company first] will be pretty cheap as I’m not ordering a lot of services from them.
Also, on Amazon if a book has more than one edition I have seen them listed separately so I don’t see that being a problem. I’ve seen plenty of books released once under one publisher and later under another, with completely different covers. It’s confusing but I don’t see how with the same title and back cover text it could be a major problem. I just wanted to make sure that it was okay to have the same book under different ISBNs; small inconveniences are fine by me, and I’m saving money by not purchasing an ISBN when I can get it free. I figured publishing with more than one company means more recognition, at least minutely.
Hello,
I am getting ready to print my first 1,000 books (brave, no?) and I have a question regarding the next 1,000 books I will have printed in the future…optimistic, no? Will the second 1,000 books need a new ISBN number? I’m new at this I am sure you can tell. Your posts are excellent and extremely helpful!
Hi Janey, sorry I missed your message.
No, you won’t need a new ISBN for another printing. It’s only if you change enough of the book to make it a new edition that you would need a new ISBN. Hope that helps, and don’t hesitate to leave a question here if you have one. I will repond more quickly. Thanks for visiting.
An online group is having a debate about blocks of ISBNs owned by several member authors who are also self-publishers – and whether they can sell just one unused number to another author. Some say this is forbidden – I say it’s perfectly legal except as you stated, the “publisher” would appear as the buyer of the ISBN block. Can you elaborate? Thanks!
Dani,
You should check the website of Bowker, the U.S. ISBN Agency. Bowker specifically does not allow the sale of ISBNs from an ISBN owner to other parties, and it’s probably a pretty bad idea. If Bowker decided you were out of compliance with the agreement under which they license you to use the ISBN, they could conceivably revoke them. Is it worth that? And having someone else identified as the publisher, erroneously? Bowker has licensed a few companies to sell individual ISBNs and I believe you can get them for $99 for a single identifier. That would be my suggestion.
Technically, the answer to:
“If I get an ISBN, does that mean my book is copyrighted?”
Is correct…but misleading.
Under US copyright law, the mere act of creation establishes copyright-no other action is required.
Filing with the Copyright Office is completely optional.
But practically, filing makes protecting your rights much easier, since it established with a branch of the Government, which makes it more difficult to establish that someone else created the work earlier…but not impossible.
Copyright has also been protected by notarized copies of the work and by several other means, though none of them are easy.
Hi Joe, thanks for addressing this question, if briefly.
Any thoughts on this in follow-up? The micro-press I work with (Doulos Resources) is entering more heavily into the eBook arena, and I was just wondering about this question earlier this evening. We’re planning a release later this fall via print, eBook, and PDF. Will we need 2 ISBNs or 3, I wondered?
“Who would know the answer?” immediately came to mind— and The Book Designer was my first thought. If you have any opinion, I’d appreciate it.
Ed,
Right now the recommendation is to use 1 ISBN for print, and 1 for all electronic editions. However, this is still an unsettled area and is under study by Bowker and others. I think it’s a good guideline since it clearly indicates two different editions, without having to assign and track up to 9 ISBNs for every book.
Hope that helps, and thanks for stopping by.
Hi Joel, thanks for the helpful response. (And I just noticed my typo in the first comment, leaving the “l” off your name— how tactless! Sorry about that.)
That’s the convention I plan/planned to go with. Thank you for the confirmation.
I appreciate your blog and website very much!
I was just about to press the ‘BUY’, button on the isbn-us site, when i thought i’d have another check, just to be sure i was doing the right thing!
I’m in the Uk and am not happy about having to shell out over 100 pounds for 10 ISBN’s when i will only ever print 1 book. So i was delighted to see the $55 offer on isbn-us, for 1 isbn and a barcode. However, i need to know is this legal! Can i buy an ISBN in the US and use it in the UK?
Little Red, the ISBNs sold by Bowker and its agents like ISBN-US (Bar Code Graphics) are for use in the US only. There is a different ISBN for UK, which is operated by Nielsen (Nielsen Book. Hope that helps.
(The $55 ISBN isn’t a great solution anyway. It will not identify your publishing company as the book’s publisher.)
Thanks for that Joel. I was looking for a cheaper option than a block of 10 numbers! My book has cost me a small fortune so far!! I don’t suppose there are any other companies that sell single ISBN’s in the UK. It seems like such a waste that will have 9 unused numbers.
Nice post, Joel. Good info. Just a couple of things to add:
1. Regarding Books in Print: When you assign an ISBN to a particular title through the MyIdentifiers.com interface, you can (and should) set up the corresponding cover image and metadata. Conveniently, that information automatically flows into BIP. [I specifically asked Bowker about that when I was researching my ISBN course on our SelfPubU.com site.]
2. Regarding different ISBN for print vs digital: Keep in mind that the ISBN is like a part number. You need it to be unique enough to identify the specific product your customer wants to buy or your retailer wants to order. For that reason, not only do you need separate ISBN’s for your print book and your e-book, but you need a separate one for every FORMAT of your e-book (Kindle, EPUB, etc). Otherwise, there would be no way to differentiate them at ordering time.
For now, Kindle does not require an ISBN because only Amazon sells Kindle e-books and they assign their own ASIN. But Amazon recommends that you assign one anyway. If Amazon ever licenses the Kindle format to third parties, an ISBN will be required.
Thanks for the useful information, James. The disputes over ISBNs for ebooks don’t look like they’ve been settled yet, but I think your approach is the safest one for most self-publishers to follow. Just another reason to buy as many ISBNs as you can afford, since they are much less expensive in volume.
Talk about unsettled! Bowker didn’t even list EPUB as a format until fairly recently. I tried to get an ISBN for the EPUB version of our book Funds to the Rescue so I could submit it to the Smashwords Premium Catalog, but EPUB wasn’t listed. I told Mark Coker about it, and one of the guys on his team (who has contacts inside Bowker) made it happen.
BTW, we’ve only published 10 books so far, but when we ran out of our first block of 10, we bought a block of 1,000 (only $1 each that way). We should be set for a while no matter what happens.
I don’t know, James, Susan could take that as a challenge.
I got my 100 back when they didn’t charge you. You had to pay a flat fee of $35 and the nice ladies in New Jersey would mail you an envelope with green-bar computer paper, that was your official “ISBN Log.”
Can the same ISBN be used in the UK and USA or do you require seperate ISBN for each country.
Ron: A book only needs one ISBN, but the ISBN you use must be issued by the country that publishes the book. If you are a US author publishing here, you can get your ISBN from Bowker and that’s the only ISBN you’ll need, regardless of where your book is sold. If you are a UK author, you’ll need to get your ISBN from the UK issuing authority, but again, if you then sell the book in the US, you don’t need another ISBN.
You can see this rule in action if you upload your books to Lightning Source. You assign a single ISBN to your book when you submit the title, and Lightning Source distributes the book in both the US and the UK.
OK Thanks James
OK, so if I go with self-pub: I’ll need a different ISBN # for EACH format?? As well as a different one for any printed books?? And as long as there are no substantial changes in the content, that original ISBN # will always be ‘fine’ for the book/format it was purchased for??
Obviously, I’d like to self-pub, and have the ability to sell in print, PDF downloads, and the various e-book formats. I have a trilogy – which I’ll need separate ISBN #’s for? I also have a new story line which I expect may turn into a series, more than three, I hope – which I’ll also need separate ISBN #’s for, per format, etc??
Do I have this correct? And if I were to purchase a ‘block’ of ISBN #’s, I am the one who applies one of them to each book/format?
Sorry if this is confusing, imagine how it looks inside my own head! *laughs*
Thanks in advance to anyone brave enough to tackle this one… I appreciate all the help I can get!
Hi Ressa!
The answer on ISBN’s is that it all comes down to how the books will be sold. You can sell the PDF versions of your books on your own web site without an ISBN. You can sell a Kindle version of your book through Amazon.com without an ISBN because they assign their own number.
The time you need an ISBN is when your book will be sold to booksellers through any kind of distribution channel. For example, if you want to put your book into the Smashwords Premium Catalog, you have to get an ISBN for the EPUB version that they will distribute to Apple and Barnes & Noble. If you load your book up into Lightning Source for paperback POD and want to have it distributed though the Ingram catalog, you’ll need a separate ISBN for that version.
The ISBN is essentially a unique, industry-wide, product number. If I’m a bookseller and I want to order the EPUB version of your book, I need a unique number to identify it. That’s the only way to ensure I don’t accidentally get some other format.
And yes, you also need a separate ISBN for each book, for the same reason. If I want to order the second book of your trilogy in paperback format, I need a unique number to make sure I get the right book in the right format.
In today’s market, a single book can easily need 3 ISBNs: One for the paperback version, one for EPUB, and one for MobiPocket/Kindle (Amazon does recommend you assign one). Those are just the basics. If you want retailers to be able to order your PDF version, you’ll need an ISBN for that as well.
You also asked about assigning ISBNs. When you buy a block of ISBNs, all you are really doing is “reserving them” for future use. When you are ready to assign an ISBN, you go back to MyIdentifiers.com, select an ISBN, and enter the information about the book you want to assign it to. The book information flows into the Books in Print database, which is the master book catalog for U.S. book titles.
I hope this helps clear things up a bit.
James:
Thank you! Very clear & wonderful advice. One more question: Do I have to have an actual author/book-dedicated website from which to sell a PDF copy of my books? Or can it be any other form of an online media platform?
I really appreciate your advice & time!
Thanx again~
You’re welcome, Ressa.
Regarding a web site, you definitely should at least have an author web site. Having a separate site for each book is optional, but also recommended. Your author web site is the hub of all your online book marketing activities. You need a consistent place to send people who have questions about you or your work. You can make your web site from a blog, or at least have a blog attached to the site so you can keep it fresh with regular new content. Search engines love that.
As for how you sell your PDF ebooks, the choices are many and varied. You could just start with a PayPal button on your web site and email the book to the buyer when you get an order. You can also move up to an online shopping cart of some variety that supports file downloads for totally automated sales. The hosting company who hosts your web site will probably have ecommerce options you can look into, but they’ll cost you extra. Some blogs also have “plug-ins” you can use.
When you are looking at online download options, the main thing is to make sure your files are protected from direct access. If you can type the location of your book into a browser URL and bring it up, your file is not protected. It should only be accessible through the ecommerce software after a payment has been made.
You are at an exciting time in your publishing career. Keep it simple at first and enjoy the process.
Best of luck!
Thanks again, James!
You’re awesome & very friendly
It is an exciting time. Although I’m growing a bit impatient, *laughs*, I know that’s pretty much a useless emotion in the ‘biz’… I finished my 1st book months ago & have been weighting out all options since.
We own/run a commercial painting company which has served us very well for almost 20 years. However, this wonderful economy has all but closed our doors. I know better than to expect an ‘income’ from this, this early anyway, but we just don’t have much of the funds needed for constructing a website and such. I will get it done somehow, I’m nothing if not relentless…
I actually started another book recently, and now I’m thinking about trying to get it out there before my first one. It’s edgy, fun, just more exciting in general. Ah, the joys of decision making.
Thank you, again! I will try to relax & enjoy more…
Thanks, Ressa. Glad I could help.
Just thought I’d mention that you can get started with most of what you need for free or very little cost. You can set up a site in a few minutes with one of the free blog tools (blogger.com, wordpress.com, etc.) Setting up a PayPal account is free too.
I do recommend that you buy a domain name and point it at your blog. Use your own domain name rather than the blog site’s domain (which is often something like “mysite.blogger.com”) for all of your marketing. That way, if you decide to move your site somewhere else later, you won’t have to change all of your links to it, and you won’t lose all of the traffic you’ve generated.
Great advice, James, thanks so much for filling in, I really appreciate it.
My pleasure, Joel. When Ressa issued the challenge, “Thanks in advance to anyone brave enough to tackle this one,” I couldn’t resist!
James: LMAO! I knew that line would get quick attention.
Joel: I’ve been nosing around on this site and I must say, you (whomever has done it all – maybe several ‘yous’) have done a wonderful job. I’ve found many great answers to several more of my own questions. Thanks again for being here and for all the great – and FREE – advice! You all are amazing!
Well, Ressa, glad you got such good help. I write the articles but, as you can see, the end of the article is often the beginning of the discussion, and there are some that have been going on almost 2 years. I love to connect with people who have a passion for books and publishing, whatever form it takes, so it’s nice to have you here as a reader.
We have a set of articles on local history published around 1915 for our historical society that someone has copied and gotten an ISBN number for and is now selling them on-line. Any recourse we have to this?
If you genuinely wish to pursue legal action of some kind, you should contact an Intellectual Property lawyer right away.
Given the age of the material, it’s possible the articles are now in the public domain. Here’s a link to the copyright office, which has online information about copyright law. It’s pretty confusing though, so talking to an IP lawyer really is your best bet.
http://www.copyright.gov/laws/
Bob, since the articles were published in 1915 it is likely that the copyright has expired. If so, you cannot do anything about the publication that someone else has created, because the material would now be in the public domain. In effect, it belongs to the public, and anyone can publish it.
However, this only applies to works that have been published, so if you have any unpublished papers, they may still enjoy protection.
The alternative, of course, is to publish your own version of the material.
Hope that helps.
Yes, thanks for the comments. It’s frustrating to find that we are basically being ripped off in that we are a small historical society that sometimes depends on reprints of our published materials for some income. Unfortunately, ethics doesn’t seem to play a part in this.
Ethical + Legal + Profitable. That’s the trifecta. However, it’s not unusual for individuals to sacrifice one to improve the other.
Bob, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but if the material is in the public domain you are not being ripped off, and the other publisher is doing nothing unethical.
As a content creator, I’m a proponent of copyright law protection, but there simply is no protection, nor should there be, for works in the public domain.
I’ve also published public domain material (I wrote about this just the other day: Fact and Fiction on the Copyright Page and there are many publishers who run profitable businesses publishing similar material.
Thank you for your additional comments and I did take the time to read your “Fact and Fiction” and interestingly or uninterestingly enough I do know who Peter Ouspensky was. In any event, though I do not mean to offend, you will have to forgive me if I have somewhat the same reaction as the literary giant…basically, “It’s our stuff”…and I felt the same way when I found an essay of mine reproduced practically whole cloth from one web site to another without attribution. Attribution used to be required scholarship when I went to school; and then again, it used to be polite to even just ask.
Well, Bob, there’s a huge difference between someone reproducing your content without your permission (attribution is meaningless in this case) because that’s copyright infringement, a federal offense punishable by fines, imprisonment or both.
Publishing content that’s in the public domain is not impolite, it’s not infringement, and it’s perfectly acceptable in my mind. This is the whole point of the public domain.
How about Shakespeare? Should we be hunting down his heirs and paying them to reprint his plays? Why not?
The material in the book I wrote about was not “theirs” any more than it was “mine” since there was no copyright on it. You are standing up for a large company that chose to lie to book buyers about the status of the book.
Copyright is a set of laws, and having at least a familiarity with those laws is one of the requirements of being a publisher, in my opinion. Thanks for continuing this discussion, because it’s vital for people to understand.
Bob, this is a discussion that I have followed with interest, because the ethics of copyright law are of peculiar intrigue to me.
By “it’s our stuff” do you mean that the person who wrote it is still living and has complained about the unattributed use of his/her work? If that is the case, there is a legal argument to be made (as Joel has already pointed out); but, if that is the case, surely the author is quite elderly!
If by “it’s our stuff” you mean (as I would presume) that it belongs to the historical society, I — and any copyright or intellectual property lawyer — would argue that this is, at best, dubious.
For that to be the case, the arrangement would have had to be a “work for hire” agreement, whereby the original author(s) forfeited all claim of copyright, intellectual property, and even authorship to the historical society. When it comes to that, there is a pretty good argument to be made that “work for hire” agreements are themselves pretty unethical, so your complaints against the ethical nature of the reprinting might fall on deaf ears. And, at any rate, even a “work for hire” work under the 1915 copyright statutes would now have entered the public domain.
Since then, you may be relieved to know, copyright law has been re-worked so as to allow corporations to legally function like a person in these ways, at least insofar as holding copyrights in perpetuity goes. This is why, for example, Mickey Mouse’s image cannot be used without permission (which you won’t get) or a lawsuit (which you will get). This, too, has its challengers from an ethical perspective, because historically — and you will appreciate this, as a part of a historical society — culture is created for the common good, and not merely for financial gain. Good arguments have been made for looser, not stricter, copyright laws concerning which cultural artifacts move into public domain. (Google “Lawrence Lessig” and/or “Creative Commons” for more on this — Lessig has some great presentations on YouTube concerning the need for more access to cultural works.)
All of which is simply to add to Joel’s already-adequate answer. But I thought it was worth saying, nevertheless.
And it was well-worth saying and appreciated! Thanks for your comments on an issue I think I have probably carried on much too long.
Not wanting to belabor the issue, but more like “reacting” in that way, rather than standing up for them. Obviously, theirs was a mis-representation that – you would have thought – should have been beneath them and I by no means meant to defend that. As for Shakespeare – his heirs, if any can be found (I’ll leave that to Ancestry), are missing out on a pile of cash. In a side note, you may be aware of Mark Roesler, who managed to collect for the heirs of dead celebrities. Why not Shakespeare?
Copyright law is complicated, which is why it has been overhauled multiple times in this country. Just look at what happened with the Google Book Settlement (which wasn’t settled). The “orphaned works” issue and “opt-out” issues pretty much tanked the deal. Both related to perceived copyright infringement.
So, really, I don’t think you belabor the issue. As Joel said, it’s something we all need to understand.
The truth is that we are fortunate to have copyright protection at all. The reason we do is largely because it was originally thought to protect creativity. If someone else could come along and make a fortune on your work without your permission, you wouldn’t bother creating it in the first place. That premise has been argued against since it was first proposed, and if its opponents had prevailed, there would be no such thing as copyright protection today. EVERYTHING would be public domain (as some folks say it should be).
So, I’m with Joel. All authors and publishers need to understand their rights and responsibilities with regards to copyright, particularly self-publishers who must take responsibility for their own legal decisions and liability.
Unfortunately, your situation is particularly complicated. As a content repository, you have works written by multiple authors who may or may not still be living. How your organization came into possession of the material and what it has done to establish legal ownership of that material comes into play. That’s why I suggested you speak with an IP lawyer.
If the information is indeed in the public domain at this point, you have no recourse, and anyone may legally use the material with a clear conscience.
As someone else suggested, your best bet is to take advantage of the fact that you have immediate and direct access to this material to create your own publications. Those publications WOULD have copyright protection. In other words “beat them to it.”
Thanks for that! I really do appreciate all the helpful comments.
Great post, Joel. Who would have thought there would be so many questions about such a *simple* acronym
And I have one more…
Question #21: Should I buy my own ISBN or let (CreateSpace / Lulu / Author House, Smashwords, etc) provide one for me?
BUY IT YOURSELF! You need to be able to control the data in your Bowker record – to enter keywords so search engines can find your book, and to let Bowker know your book is out of print and updated with a new ISBN number, so customers will never get that horrible “not found” or “out of print” message.
Good one Carla, thanks for adding to the stew.
can a publisher seek isbn for a book already published few years ago by the publisher ? kinhly help. reply soon
thanks.
yours sincerely
ramrameswaram.
Ram, is the publisher the same one who originally published the book?
can a publisher seek isbn for a book already published few years ago by the publisher ? kindly help. reply soon .
thanks.
yours sincerely
ramrameswaram.
If I self publish my book with a number of publishers do I have to use a seperate ISBN for each publisher or can I use the same ISBN.
Ron, you should use the same ISBN for each edition no matter who prints it. So a softcover version of the book, for instance, can be printed by different printers and, as long as they are pretty much identical, they should all have the same ISBN.
My grandmother is an author and has ran out of copies of one of her books. She no longer has the original copy that she sent to the printer, nor does she have her old word processing files of the book. All she has is the cover art and art within the pages. She has asked me, on my off time, to duplicate her book page for page in MS Word. She gave me the margins, font size, and line spacing that she used. However, I am having issues getting the text to fall on the page as it does in the book without spending a lot of time manually adjusting text each page. She used a very old version of Word Perfect to write the book the first time, and she also put her headers and footers manually into her copy area rather than using Word Perfect’s headers and footers. We would like to use MS Word’s headers and footers and also, instead of trying to duplicate the book page by page, just let the text fall into the page as MS Word sets them. You stated that an ISBN can be used on minor revisions of the text in a book, but would this be too drastic of a change to re-use the books current ISBN, even though the text itself isn’t being changed?
Steven, two things: This will definitely be a new edition, and needs a new ISBN if you plan to sell it in the retail market. If it’s a private publication it needs no ISBN. Also, many specialized book printers offer a service that’s very reasonable by which they will scan an old book and create a PDF that’s used to print new copies (still a new edition). For instance, I had a book scanned and put back into print for under $200.
Hope that helps.
Could anyone answer my question?
Do I need an isbn if the book is purely for my own personal use?
Thanks
Jen
Jen, no you don’t need an ISBN if you have no plans to sell your book.
Thank Joel,
Now I just need to find a printer who will do small quantities!
Jen
You are a wonderful man, I wish I was so brainy.
Hi, I published my book with trafford but their base price was way too high to make any profits for its intended purpose as a fundraiser. I am now doing a second printing myself with a new ISBN number, however I am wondering if I should cancel my current listing with trafford or what I should do so when people search my books title (which will be the same) TRAFFORD’s version doesnt pop up. Any suggestions???
P.S. You Rock!!!
Should i purchase my digital file thats around $400 from this self publishing company or should i just use the print ready pdf i have and send to a printer?
You should get the digital files. The PDF will only be of use if you never ever have a change to the book. That’s not likely. The files are part of your capital investment and I would be sure to get them.
Hi,
I have a question that bothers me…. I am a self-publisher, live in Europe and I intend to publish my books only on-line (via Amazon for exs., as an eBook and Print-on-Demand Book).
Bowker said that you can buy ISBN only if you are located in the USA. So where can I buy my ISBN?
ISBN Agency in my country is quite strict and requires some conditions before you assign ISBN. So, you can’t buy package of 10 or more ISBNs whenever you want. First you have to fill their conditions and write the whole book – and send them all headings and subheadings that appear in your book, and whole bibliography (really crazy if you ask me).
Is it really impossible for non-USA writers to buy ISBNs and publish their book by their conditions? Today, the whole World is one Village. It seems unbelievable to me, in this 21. century, to not having this posibility. I have no intention of publishing my book in my country on my official language (only on english). So, can I also buy ISBNs on Bowker to publish on Amazon, Lulu etc.?
It’s really important to me, so I really looking forward for your answer.
All the Best!
Nora
Nora,
There are two ways around the situation.
1. Set up an address in the U.S. through a mail delivery service and use that address when you buy your ISBNs from Bowker.
2. Use a company that supplies ISBNs, like CreateSpace. Use their ISBN. I don’t usually recommend this, but it might work great for you.
Hope that helps.
I don’t quite understand No.1: You mean to e-mail adress (set up USA as my Country in my e-mail preferences, and this e-mail adress using for buy ISBNs on Bowker) or to Home adress (street, town, country)?
Thank You!
Nora, I mean a mail delivery address at a physical location. You need a street address of some kind in the U.S. There are companies (like UPS stores or Mail Boxes Etc) that provide this service.
I am publishing on Create Space and have their ISBN. Can I publish the same book on Google Books with another isbn?
Mike,
Yes. You’ll need 1 ISBN for any print edition (like CreateSpace) and 1 ISBN for your ePub version that will sell on Google Books. You can use the same ePub with the same ISBN to sell your book on BN.com and other sites, too.
Quick question regarding ISBN and self-publishing:
Having purchased a block of 10 ISBN numbers, I decided to burn one as a test, just to get the hang of how it works. After dealing with that ridiculous website for hours – the first hour was wasted because apparently the Bowker or ISBN website only works with Internet Explorer? – I was finally able to get through.
My question is, as a self-publishing author, who/what do I put down as my publisher? It is a required box (has an asterisk, must be filled), but as I do not have a publisher I did not know what to put.
Ironically, I filled it with something along the lines of “I don’t have a publisher but there is an asterisk”, just so I could continue and finish the process. Now I get mail about once every two weeks addressed to me, and the address looks something like:
My Name
I DON’T HAVE A PUBLISHER BUT THERE IS AN ASTERISK
My Address
My City, State, Zip Code
Irrelevant of course, but it was hilarious to get different pieces of mail from Bowker and other sources addressed to myself as such.
Anyways, feel free to help me out here, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks.
Adam,
That’s actually pretty funny. Bowker assigns ISBNs to publishers, who then assign them to individual titles. They are looking for a name of a publishing company. For instance, I self-publish my own books and I call my publishing company Marin Bookworks. I set this up with the local county clerk here so I can cash checks and do business legally in that name. You’ll have to check with your own local authorities. However, you don’t have to establish a publishing company to use ISBNs. If you’d rather not, just use your own name as Publisher.
how many isbn do i need to have for, 5000 books exactly the same as each other
Ron, you only need 1 ISBN for that specific edition. How many copies of the edition there are doesn’t matter.
Hi! I’m also not a U.S. resident and have been struggling on how to get an ISBN. So I have a couple of questions:
1. Is it really possible to buy an ISBN from Bowker if I can provide an address in the U.S. ? and will that bee problem-free if I’m self-publishing through lulu.com?
2. What are your thoughts on self-publishing through lulu.com with their free lulu-owned ISBN, which is what they offered me if I can’t bring my own ISBN. Are there any reasons why one should avoid using a lulu-owned ISBN? I’ve been searching for reviews in this topic, but haven’t been able to find any clear statements: pros/cons?
Thanks in advance for any help and/or advice and Happy 2012!
{ 12 trackbacks }