International Standard Book Numbers
An ISBN is a product number, used by publishers, booksellers and libraries
for ordering, listing and stock control. The ISBN provides the key to access a
book in almost all bibliographic databases. It is therefore an important
marketing tool.
If you wish to sell your book through major bookselling chains or Internet
booksellers, they will require it to have an ISBN to assist their internal
processing and ordering systems. You will therefore need to make sure that
it has an ISBN; fortunately this is part of the service that WritersPrintShop
provides.
You don't need an ISBN if you are going for Private Publishing and your book
will not be put on sale.
The 10 digits are always divided into 4 parts of varying length which can be
separated by spaces or hyphens. One book can have several ISBNs if it is
published in different languages, by different publishers, or in different
formats. So the paperback and hardback version of the same book will have different
ISBNs, as they are different editions.
The 13 digit barcode has the prefix 978 (979 to follow) and
so the last digit which is there as a check digit, will also change.
The ISBN
should appear on the reverse of the title page and on the outside back cover of
the book. If the book has a dust jacket, the ISBN should also appear on the back
of it. For an audio tape or CD the ISBN should appear on the packaging and/or
inlay card. If the publication is folded or rolled, such as a map, the number
should be visible when folded. The ISBN normally appears in numeric and bar code
format for point-of-sale scanners.
You cannot request an ISBN for calendars and diaries, entertainment
videos or CDs, computer games or software plus their manuals. There is a tacit
acceptance that ISBNs can be added as an idetifier to ebooks but each format
must have its own ISBN.
You can't normally
have an ISBN for an educational course book or a title designed for limited distribution.
However, these are arbitrary rules and you can assign ISBN codes given to you to
almost anything but you will have trouble when you try to enter the data.
Don't confuse your ISBN with your ISSN or International Standard Serial
Number. This is the number for newspapers and magazines which is administered by
the British Library.
Check the Links for some national and international ISBN agents.
The Standard Book Numbering Agency Ltd is the ISBN Agency for the UK and
Republic of Ireland. UK ISBN
agency US ISBN agency
WritersPrintshop will get the ISBN for your book as part of the
service.
CIP
Many national libraries maintain a Catalogue of Book in
Print. (known as CIP). This is not to be confused with the national
bibliography. For reasons that owe more to the old world of card indexes and
sending letter, you are required to submit your book 16 weeks before
publication.
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