Last week at Macworld, a couple Blurbarians enthused about the profit-making possibilities of Blurb’s new Set Your Price program asked about getting an ISBN number for their books. It’s a good question, so we thought we’d answer it for everyone right here.
But first things first: What’s an ISBN number, and why would you want one? Grab a book, and check out the back cover. You see that number above the barcode? That’s the ISBN number, which helps libraries catalog your book and bookstores keep track of how many they’ve sold. It can come in handy if you want to sell your book in ye olde brick and mortar bookstores, or contribute a copy to your public library (how very thoughtful of you).
The International ISBN Agency explains the uses of an ISBN number and provides a free, handy ISBN user manual spelling out all the juicy numeric details. OK, so maybe not so juicy… here’s the abridged version: As of January 2007, ISBNs need to be 13 numbers (with tens of thousands of books published annually, the world was running out of 10-digit numbers) and should be included on the back cover with a scanable bar code. Apparently the number should be “eye-readable” — as opposed to, what, nose-readable? But you get the idea.
So how do you get your very own ISBN number? Until recently, it wasn’t easy – the U.S. ISBN broker, Bowker, sold numbers in blocks of at least 10, as did most international ISBN brokers. Authors would get together and buy blocks of numbers and matching barcodes at a price that came out to about $50 per ISBN-barcode combo. But as Kevin Kelly explains in his indispensable Cool Tools blog, you can actually get a single ISBN number from Bowker: Call them at 877-310-7333, select voicemail option #4, and request a faxed application to get a single ISBN number for $125. For application details and info on selling your book on Amazon, consult Kevin’s post on the subject. (And before you ask: Currently Blurb doesn’t offer ISBN services, but we’re looking into it.)
Once you’ve got your ISBN number, you can include it in your Blurb book. Add a jpeg of your barcode to your image library, then drag and drop it onto the back cover. (You can take your pick of back cover layouts in the layout menu in the upper left of BookSmart.) You can also type your ISBN number on the copyright page opposite your title page for a most official look.
Or if you prefer, you can create your own fancy back cover PDF with your ISBN bar code on a white background (for “eye-readability”) anywhere but the lower right corner (a tracking code goes there). Save your cover as a jpeg or png, then upload it to your image library. Choose a full-bleed layout for your back cover, then drag and drop your back cover image where it belongs. Nice, eh? A couple of Blurbarians have already done this, and it looks mighty sharp.
Got any ISBN or design tips of your own to share? Do tell…
17 Comments
This is all useful, thanks.
Is there a way to buy an ISBN in the UK? Or can this only be done through the US?
Yes you can, only in blocks of ten though. Website link here will take you to the ISBN Agency.
fantastic info…thanks a million….one can buy blocks of 10 ISBN s at the site for about $300. these are strickly practical for those who want to sell their books in stores or internet sites. you do plan to make more than ONE blurb book, right!!!
So 1 ISBN # for $125 or 10 for $300. Seems to me you’re better of buying 10 ISBN #
this is from the ISBN list,
10 ISBNs: $275.00
100 ISBNs: $995.00
1000 ISBNs: $1,750.00
so, if we can get 10 people to split the 1000 ISBNs that’s only $1.75 per number and you’d have 100 of them. crazy.
I’m in for $175 is my math right?
ISBNs are a way for a book to be listed in the ultimate tome on which books are in print, it’s called “Books in Print”. ISBNs are assigned to a publisher. The format is this:
978-0-929228-10-5
978=This is a book and the ISBN assigned was originally a 10 digit one
0=It’s written in The kind of english that they use in North America
929228=It was published by the Very Excellent publisher known as Static Image Press
10=this is the tenth book in this block tto be assigned, it belongs to the very excellent book called “Trefonides Sketchbooks” soon to be available at a Blurb.com web portal near you!
5=a check-bit, which is calculated by subjecting all the other numbers to an algorithm that was undoubtedly thunk up by a middle school boy as a way to encode notes to send to his mate on the other side of the classroom.
If you buy a block of numbers and split them amongst a bunch of people then all of those numbers will be listed in Books in Print as having been published by the same publisher, ie y’all. Aside: Do you really think you are going to publish 100 books? This all may not be an issue, but you should know what you’re getting for your money and that you might be contributing to the wasting of yet another limited resource, (don’t you feel bad enough about the rain forests ;) ). I’ve had 100 ISBN’s since the mid 80’s (back when, (IIRC) it cost me $45) and I have used a very very few of them. This is something that I intend to rectify now that there are such nice printing services like this here Blurb.com(tm).
You should note that in the rules of ISBNs that any significant alteration in content or binding needs a different ISBN, ie Hardbound needs one and paperbound needs two. Which is one of the things that bugs me about Blurb.com(TM), given the restraints of the Blurb.com(R) systems if I want a barcode on my book and I want to offer it as both hardbound and paper then I have to upload two copies and purchase one of each before I can add it to the bookstore. This makes redundant the very nice feature that Blurb.com(SM) has where a prospective purchaser can choose which version they would like.
! TIP ! -> you can pay a bunch of money for someone to generate a barcode for you but there is a very nice site created by a seemingly very charming person that seemingly does research into Aeroelasticity, rotorcraft aeromechanics and sailplanes that uses open source software to generate a barcode for any number you care to feed it. For free. As in Beer:
http://www.tux.org/~milgram/bookland/index.html
And personally I think the chicken was showing off to the armadillo.
Thanks for this info. I purchased my 10 isbn’s from the UK site who were very helpful. No luck with the US site.
However, they don’t provide the bar code. Does anyone have a suggestion on where to get the bar code or what software might be best.
Thank you in advance
anyone want to sell me an ISBN….?
yes, I woudl like to buy a ISBN #, perhaps those interested can get together and share? Much cheaper…. and .. what about the bar code? Thanks, Pat
Hey, “Looking into it…” Well. Why doesn’t Blurb.com just have someone buy 1,000 ISBNs and sell them in packages of two (soft and hard covers) as a part of the whole package? How hard is that? The ISBN number and barcode would be a standard part of the back cover, just like the tracking barcode, only in the other corner. But for right now, it seems my choices are to buy 10 at $300 or get/buy two ISBNs from someone. Thanks, Joel
I am Looking to get a ISBN # anyone out there interested in getting one too or know a group of people who are trying to get together to get a group rate on one?
If so please let me know!
Thanks a lot.
While a “group purchase” of an ISBN prefix is certainly possible, I would urge that everyone potentially involved consider that if you are going to purchase an ISBN 10-size prefix, that ISBN prefix is assigned to only ONE PUBLISHER within Books in Print databases and not to 10 different individual publishers. Only the company that purchases the ISBN prefix would be recognized by retailers, libraries, search engines, etc.
I am looking to obtain an ISBN number for a hardbound book only.
Is it possible to publish without ISBN or barcode on Blurb? (lets’ say you’re not going to publish anywhere else).
You really should understand that ISBN’s are numbers that are used to identify the publisher of a book. With an ISBN your book is entered into a listing called Books in Print, maintained by Bowker, Inc. Andy is right, if you buy an ISBN from someone else then the entity that “sold” you the ISBN is the publisher, not you. ISBNs have become the number that booksellers use to control their inventory.
I suggest that you come up with an answer to this question: “Why do I want an ISBN for my book? What does my book gain from it?” It can give the book a look of authenticity, but is that really worth the money? I suppose that if there were a bunch of people here that wanted to become a cooperative publisher then you could all pitch in and buy a block of ISBNs, but someone would have to maintain the log, (a listing of the mapping from ISBNs to titles/authors), I suppose you could all share the login to the Bowker web site but that is pretty ripe for abuse, once an ISBN is assigned to a book it cannot _EVER_ be changed. Well, there is a process, but I doubt Bowker likes to mess with that sort of stuff too often.
If your purpose of getting an ISBN is to sell your Blurb book through a bookstore you need to understand that the large ones have contracts with distributors and they deal exclusively with those distributors. If you are thinking you want to bring your book to the corner Mom and Pop Store you should know that the price you are going to have to ask from them (in order to make any sort of money above what Blurb charges) is so far above what they are able or willing to pay for a book that they won’t take up what little shelf space they have for your book.
All this is not to say that I have any trouble with Blurb, as a matter of fact I love it, it has allowed me to publish books again, after shutting down Static Image Press 20 years ago, but the books I am makeing with Blurb are for a very limited audience, and the great advantage that Blurb has over traditional publishing is that I don’t have to do a large run in order to make the book affordable and then carry stock in hopes that I can sell enough to make back my costs. The books are made one at a time on demand. No waste, no gambling.
Grace,
You can publish a book without an ISBN, there is no rule about that, the number is simply a way for publishers, wholesellers, and booksellers to manage inventory.
if you want a barcode of your ISBN you can get one for free from:
http://www.tux.org/~milgram/bookland/index.html
you will have to convert the pict format image into a jpg in order to get it onto a blurb book.
This does seem like something that Blurb could code up to do for you, it’s really not a very hard program to write …