However. There always seems to be one of those around when you don't expect it. However, this point is one that has made this project worthwhile to my OWN publishing business. ISBN numbers are NOT a legal requirement to publish a book.
According to the PPA, an association for publishers and media suppliers and ISBN is simply a product number used in the book industry for ordering, listing and stock control purposes.
It offers NO copyright protection. It is just a number to help you sell your book.
Each version of a particular book is represented by its own 13 digit number and is issued by the Standard Book Numbering Agency.
There is some confusion as to how to assign a number to lets say a revised issue, or say if the hard back or the paperback should have a different ISBN number.
All I have to say is that imagine you went into a car dealership and you ordered your BMW 316i. The salesman writes in 316i in the product code box in the order form and asks you for your money.
But how do you know that you'll get a left hand drive? With Air conditioning. And in black?
Because they have a product code for all those things so that when your order enters the system, they know you want a black, left hand drive, air conditioned 316i.
It's the same with books. Look up “Harry Potter and the deathly hallows” on Amazon and you'll see a perfect example of what I mean. That book comes in two versions an adult one and a child edition, where the only difference is the binding and the cover art. And they have separate ISBN's to make sure everyone involved in selling those books knows exactly if you want the child edition or the adults edition.
The ISBN number serves a couple of purposes. It identifies a particular publisher and it also allows the publisher to identify a specific edition of a specific title in a specific format within their output.
So if you are going to sell a cookbook in paperback format as an upsell or bonus with your ebook and you will only ever sell it from your website...
YOU DON'T NEED AN ISBN!
The ONLY time you will need an ISBN number on your paperback book is when you want to sell your book through the normal channels like Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, Amazon and any other bookstores.
So why should you limit yourself and not put an ISBN number on your book?
I can't think of a good reason really. Distribution is the key to volume sales so why limit yourself.
For the cost of under £11 per project you get access to a distribution network if you add the barcode and ISBN number to the back of your book.
And once you have the ISBN numbers you can register on Nielsen book data and add the details of your book to their lists.
Now, adding your title to their database is not enough to get your books into the stores, but it means that it will end up on Amazon and a raft of other well known bookstore websites. The basic free option is only letting you put basic information on there, but if you pay you can increase the visibility of your book.
But ISBN number or not, in the UK there is one legal obligation you have to subject yourself to:
Library deposits.
In the UK you are legally obligated to send ONE copy of your book to the legal deposit office of the British Library in Wetherby and FIVE copies to the legal deposit agent in London. The addresses are supplied in the resources section at the end of the book.
Buying ISBN numbers for your own use is pretty straight forward. Lulu charges around £80 to sell you 10 numbers, but rather than doing that I'd suggest you buy directly from the source.
The UK ISBN Agency is Nielsen Book data on
www.isbn.nielsenbookdata.co.uk
I'm also having to address the practice of buying ISBN's from others.
First of all, if you do use someone elses ISBN (like lulu) then they should make you aware that the publisher listed would be them, and not you. Resale of already purchased ISBN's is not legal as the number includes a unique identifier for each publisher. You are in effect the author then of a book published by them.
If you want to build your own back catalogue (a fancy word that means all the other books you have published) to build the value of your own publishing business then you should only use your own ISBN numbers.
Some companies are authorised to sell US isbn numbers which are of no real use to you if you are in the UK as the publishing country would be wrong. Not a great problem but could cost you sales.
So all in all, ISBN is quite simply a way for the book industry to assign a “product number” to each and every book in a standardised way.
