Who has purchased ISBNs? | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

I'm looking for some tips on buying (or not) ISBN numbers.  Where do I get them, how many should I get, do I really need them and etc – from someone who has been through the process.  Also, are there multiple kinds of ISBN number?

If you're writing an ebook and want to protect your content, then you should consider getting an ISBN. They are easy to purchase online at "https://www.myidentifiers.com/isbn/main". They aren't cheap, so it just depends on what your intentions are for if it's worth it or not. You get a discount if you buy in bulk, but I believe they expire after a certain period if you don't register them.

I purchased one through BookBaby.com for $19. If your book is already in an epub file, their service is free and you can add the $19 IBSN. Hope that helps!

Edward Antrobus said:

Various sites will provide you with an ISBN for free or low-cost, but then they are listed as the publisher of record. If that doesn't matter to you, then that really is the best route. That said, you aren't supposed to use that ISBN for anywhere but selling through their site.

Just so people understand better the terms for using free Smashwords ISBNs, here is a quote from their website:

"2. FREE ISBN – The best ISBN option. This option is available to books before (or after) they have been accepted into the Smashwords Premium Catalog. Select this option to receive a FREE ISBN (Smashwords pays for the ISBN as a service to you). This FREE ISBN is available to all Smashwords authors and publishers, anywhere in the world. The ISBN will register Smashwords as your publisher in the Bowker record and will list you as the author. The designation of Smashwords as the "publisher" in the Bowker record (a result of their limited categorization options), in no way makes Smashwords your legal publisher. Per the Smashwords Terms of Service, which is our contract with you, we consider you the publisher. The Bowker ISBN record has no legal bearing over ownership of your book or copyright."

Smashwords is not just being altruistic with these free ISBNs, because they want publishers to publish through them and this is just one of the services provided. They explicitly disclaim that they are the publisher and the terms do not restrict the use of the ISBN to their distribution channels, as far as I can tell.

Now, of course, this ISBN is not totally "free" in that one needs to edit the book file to conform to the Smashwords formatting rules. However, I have found that conforming to these formatting rules allows for ebook file conversions to a variety of formats that can be used on practically any device. 

Furthermore, there is a cost to distributing via Smashwords (to a variety of book seller sites, such as Apple, Sony, BN, etc.), as well as, there is a cost to distributing via Amazon. If one wishes to be free of these distribution costs and these formatting constraints, then I guess that one could do everything on their own, purchase an ISBN, and promote and distribute only through one's own websites. However, this approach would significantly restrict the potential for book sales, because book buyers tend to go to the major book seller websites to find books to buy.

Hi Edward,

Interesting clarification about Smashwords policies. Thank you.

I still think that this comes down a decision about overall logistics of ebook publishing and the associated costs including the effort involved. Does one want to go it alone or give in to paying Smashwords or another distribution vendor a commission to handle the technical and distribution hassles. If one had a best seller, it might be worth a bit more do-it-yourself in going directly to multiple distributors, but for the vast majority of authors the volume is just not there. Then, maybe the ISBN purchase would become a larger issue.

While I tried direct distribution (my websites) and distribution accounts with B&N and Amazon, I never tried Apple or the others such as Sony, Kobo. My experience with B&N and Amazon indicated that there was always going to be some unique effort for each vendor for each book, and no matter what I was going to pay a commission. (Even with direct distribution via my own site, I tried Clickbank for delivery which also involved a distribution fee.)

In the end, Smashwords covered almost all of the waterfront in terms of distribution via major ebook seller websites, so now I take all my free and paid ebooks through Smashwords. This is the path of least resistance. That gets all my ebooks on to all bookseller websites except Amazon. I use the free Smashwords ISBN for all those distribution channels. While I had set up a B&N account initially, I have ignored it since then, and I now rely upon Smashwords to get onto B&N.

Amazon is a special case. I use the Smashwords file to submit to Amazon directly, and the Smashwords supplied ISBN is part of that file. Since Smashwords disclaims publishing rights, I do not care if I include that ISBN in the Amazon file. If Smashwords and Amazon every get their act together to cooperate, then I will use Smashwords for Amazon distribution, as well, simply for convenience — as long as they do not double dip on distribution fees. Amazon is the only major vendor (in fact the single monster vendor out there) that does not distribute the whole Smashwords premium catalog.

Here is a quote for the Smashwords distribution page at: http://www.smashwords.com/distribution

"Status of Amazon: Although we have a distribution agreement with Amazon via their Kindle Direct Platform, they're unable to receive our entire catalog until they create of a bulk upload facility. In the meantime, we're only distributing a few hundred titles to Amazon out of our catalog of over 200,000. We understand that many Smashwords authors would prefer the convenience of distributing to Amazon via Smashwords, rather than uploading direct to Amazon. If your book has earned over $2,000 at Smashwords and you would prefer to consolidate your distribution via Smashwords to Amazon as opposed to working direct with them, please click the "comments/questions" link and let us know you're in the $2,000 club and would like to be considered for our distribution to Amazon."

Under this policy, I am a ways away from two grand on my paid books. Furthermore, this means that any new paid book would have to go direct to Amazon for some time, before it could get to Amazon via Smashwords. Also, I would always be infinitely far away from the two grand threshold with my free books. So this all rests with Smashwords and Amazon eventually deciding if they can be buddies and split the distribution booty. (I would bet that mutually they can figure out how to do the bulk upload technically, since Amazon has a couple more nerds than these other booksellers who already manage these bulk uploads from Smashwords.) Until then, it is Smashwords and Amazon direct with one free ISBN per book.

Larry

I believe that Book Baby is listed as either the publisher or distributor since I purchased the IBSN number through them. I'm not entirely sure.

Post edited 11:38 am – February 26, 2014 by Larry @ The Skilled Investor

FamilyMoneyValues said:

Larry, if I use Smash words, can I still market the book with their ISBN on my sites? Also, how do you feel about the sales they are getting for you?

As a prefatory comment, to me the ISBN issue has not been that important, because I do not think it is worth spending a lot of money on anything until one has actually developed sales volume. This applies to all aspects of ebook publishing from writing, editing, formatting, artwork, publishing, and distribution. I do everything with freeware and everything myself. This has involved a lot of stumbling around, but it has also forced me to understand the issues involved without paying others for activities where expenses may not be recouped.

Here is a link to a webpage about ISBNs that I found to be informative. The system garbles the link, but you can put this back together:

www dot thebookdesigner dot com/2010/03/isbn-for-self-publishers-answers-to-20-of-your-questions/

Regarding Smashwords and ISBNs and marketing on your own site, you can do what you wish. On your site, use the ebook file with the ISBN on the copyright page or cut out that line. Whichever your prefer. However, you still have to deal with the distribution and payment system issues. Are you going to manage this yourself or leverage someone else's system and pay a per unit distribution fee. For low volumes, (almost all ebooks have very low volumes) I think leveraging an existing distribution mechanism and paying a commission is the way to go. When I list my books on my sites, I just include links to Amazon, Smashwords, and maybe Apple and a few others. (Note that these other sites are just my book webpages on those sites, but they get there via Smashwords.)

To me the point about Smashwords is not direct distribution on their website. For paid books, I get a handful of sales directly off their site. However, their site does not get that much traffic relative to the major bookseller websites. 

Instead, I use Smashwords as an entry point to all the sites that they distribute their premium catalog to. Once you get through the agony of formatting the file, then your file can be used anywhere. People complain loudly about this formatting process, but it turns out to be the right answer if you want to get your ebook out there for reading on any device. 

You can distribute both free and paid ebooks through Smashwords and out to all the book seller websites that they supply. There is a 100 to 1 or 200 to 1 ratio of free to paid ebook distribution. If you are going to distribute free ebooks you need them to promote a product, and this does not mean loading up a lot of affiliate links. If you do not have a product, then free ebooks do not make a lot of sense to me. 

Finally, publishing an ebook is just the beginning of the process. There are no barriers to entry and cyberspace is flooded with low quality ebooks. If you can get over the hurdle of publishing a quality ebook, the challenge of marketing has just begun. Few will beat down your door to buy your ebook. Marketing is a larger effort than the whole ebook production process.