In the last couple of weeks I have been asked this questions at least a half dozen times. Frankly, this is something the industry is still figuring out, but the “industry” (meaning NY) doesn’t really understand eBooks yet. So, what is an ISBN anyway?
ISBN: International Standard Book Number
This is a 10 or 13 digit number that is used to identify a particular book. The main purpose is establish and identify one title or edition of a title from any given publisher. The ISBN itself has imbedded meaning. There is a group or country identifier. A Publisher identifier. A title identifier. And the the final digit in an ISBN will validate the ISBN. One thing I want everyone to focus on is the part that covers the Publisher Identifier. When you get the “free” ISBN from places such as Smashwords, they are the publisher, not you. I do believe you can pay 10$ to have the assigned publisher be you, but I’m not exactly sure how that works.
Generally (and in the past) the ISBN helped with ordering through bookstores and libraries. With the introduction of eBooks, it became standard to have two ISBN assigned to one book–but it represents two formats. At Cool Gus Publishing we track sales by ISBN for Print and for eBooks. Granted, KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) and Pubit don’t require ISBN, but I highly recommend you use it. Which brings me to the question: Do I need one for each format? for each platform?
There is a lot of discussion on this topic and a lot of confusion.
Here is the deal. You need an ISBN for your Print edition, if you have one. Why? Because that is how the book will be distributed/ordered, etc. Even if you don’t have “distribution” the ISBN is how someone in Barnes and Noble physical store is going to look up your book, place the order so you can come and pick it up in the store. It is also how your books are pushed into the system if you use something like Lightning Source as your POD service.
Then you need an ISBN for your eBook. You need one ISBN. Not one for Kindle, one for Apple, one for B&N, etc. And here is why. The file types these platforms and devices use are what is know as a reflowable eBook. The file extensions such as epub, mobi, pdp are basically interchangeable. Yep. They are. A mobi file can be easily converted to an ePub file and vice verse.
Now, one could argue that the PDF edition should have its own ISBN because technically a PDF is not a reflowable format. Its a static-paged format. But how many people are buying PDF’s? Okay, at Cool Gus Publishing we do sell a fair amount of PDF’s to customers who don’t have eReaders and don’t want to buy the print edition. But on most of the major platforms, PDF is not an option. Kindle has Mobi, Nook as ePub, Apple has ePub and Kobo has ePub. So, in reality you only need ONE ISBN for your eBook.
Any questions?
There is so much debate on this topic amongst the industry! Of course Bowkers wants to sell you a different ISBN for each version of e-book. The e-publishing platforms don’t care because each one uses their own internal number. In the end, I went with one for printed book and one for electronic version … whatever that may be. It seems to make the most sense.
Once you use the free ISBN’s from Amazon, B&N, and Smashwords, can you purchase your own and change the ISBN’S to your own? Thanks for the information, Jen.
I, too, am interested in this answer. And if you can, and decide to create/list a publisher name for yourself once you’ve purchased your own ISBNs, does changing that information create any problems?
Amazon and B&N don’t assign ISBN’s. Smashwords can if you want. Smashwords then own’s the ISBN for that addition of your book. You can get your own to load it to other sites, but you can’t use the Smashwords on. Make Sense?
i think so, thanks jen, i appreciate it
So changing the Amazon and B&N assigned ASIN number won’t have any consequences on the book? What would the consequences have for changing on Smashwords? Or can’t you change on Smashwords?
You can’t change the ASIN (that’s the number Amazon uses to identify the book in their system) or the BN ID (which is B&N’s number). Those numbers are not the same as an ISBN.
jen, so if i get a free isbn # from smashwords or google, i can use that for my other ebooks with other sellers?
or i’d need to buy the $10 one that smashwords offers?
thanks!
No. If you get the ISBN from Smashwords, you can’t use it to load the eBook to other sites. Smashwords can use for your eBook if you have them distribute it to say iBooks, but you can’t assign it to a book Smashwords is not distributing.
Wonderful post, Jen, and thanks bunches!
I do always go ahead and buy the $10 ISBN at Smashwords because yes, that does mean that I’m listed as the Publisher and not Smashwords. It requires your name and address and that way everything is registered to you.
The only negative there is if you upload to sites on your own, like Amazon and B&N you can’t use that ISBN. Yes, you don’t need one, but its a good idea since the book world still uses the ISBN to keep track of your book.
Hmmm…I thought as long as you bought the $10 ISBN you could use it for all Ebook Editions because you own that ISBN not Smashwords…that’s the reason for buying it. I’ll have to see if they’ve change the language on that one, Jen. Thanks Bunches!
It does appear that now they’re saying the purchased ISBNs for $10 are for just the EPUB format…so does that mean you could then use it on B&N, Apple and Kobo, just not on Kindle’s MOBI format?
This is great scoop, Jen! Thanks sooo much!!!
Double check to make sure YOU can use the number without using Smashwords as the distributor. I know when we were using Smashwords we had our own ISBN, so we just used that one, but when you purchase theirs and even if it says you are Publisher I think it is still linked back to them as distributor and you can’t use it if you load the book yourself. I would just double check all that.
Thanks for another informative post, Jen! Good stuff.
Such a confusing issue, isn’t it? At Ang’dora Productions, we use an ISBN for print, one for Smashwords and one for all other ebooks (Kibdle doesn’t get one because it has an ASIN). We do a separate one for Smashwords for tracking purposes, especially for piracy. Pirates may strip the “Smashwords Edition” wording, but they usually leave the ISBN to look legitimate, so this helps us know which source files are getting copied, which allows us to make decisions on what to do about it, if anything. We buy our own blocks of ISBNs. It doesn’t take long to go through 10 and we want to keep the ISBNs, regardless of printer or distributor.
Note for everyone: If you use a Smashwords or CreateSpace ISBN and you decide to change to Lightning Source or remove your books from SW to go direct to retailers, you lose that ISBN. That means you start over with sales numbers and in some places, reviews. That’s the benefit in buying your own blocks of ISBNs.
Great info here, too, Kristie, thanks!
Jen, thanks for the informative post!
I have always used the free ones from Smashwords, then use it for the Kindle version. I wonder now if it is worth it to just buy the batch of ISBN’s and use them one by one, when I release each ebook. What do people think?
Thanks for clarifying things, Jen!
I haven’t purchased an ISBN yet for my book, other than the Createspace one which came free. The 2005 position paper from the ISBN people supports a different ISBN for each VERSION of the electronic file, each file format. They argue this (and I don’t agree, but I’ll get there in a moment), is important because an ISBN has always been about classifying a unique product and they worry with overlapping ISBNs, a reader might accidentally buy the .epub format from an ebook retailer when they meant to buy a .mobi. They are predicting a day when devices and ebooks are largely unmarried items and people go to sites and buy digital files just they would an independent book store, and we’re going to need to keep track of all of this sales data that would just be too tough without individual ISBNs for each file format.
Hogwash. The ISBN is a relic. It’s from a time before integrated distribution systems and real-time reporting. It’s from a time BEFORE dynamic databases and spreadsheets in a graphical interface that middle schoolers could learn to manipulate.
The problem I have with the ISBN system for ebooks is that the high cost of a “unique” identifier is highway robbery. It’s a number. A barcode. And a database. There is no reason 1 should cost $100 but 10 cost $250. Who did that math? It’s just another bloated cost of business in a business model I see crumbling around me.
But Elizabeth, the best-seller lists! Yeah, alright, the famed best-seller lists are now ALLOWING ebook sales and calculating them by ISBN. Whoopdedoo. Statistically speaking, my chances of getting on such a list are like winning the lottery, and will get worse as more and more ebooks get to market. The future to me is going to be niche audiences and popularity algorithms. Neither require nor desire to use an ISBN, because the big sites don’t want to report jack to Bowker (or the other ISBN reporting agency in other countries) and mostly choose to do a “unique identifier” in house.
I agree and I disagree. In order to sell books in iBooks and Kobo, you must have an ISBN. I prefer not to use a distributor, so I upload my author’s books myself. I have the technology and the know how, so we buy a lot of ISBN (we bought them in bulk). Its how I reference titles etc.
The bestseller lists. While I don’t necessarily care about them, if I sell, or any of my authors sell enough to hit them, I want that to be known. Its just the way of publishing. Look at Jennifer Probst. Now she didn’t self-pub, she’s with Entangled, but hey, good for her! There is also CJ Lyons who hit the list with an eBook. Go CJ. There is more opportunity with self-pub authors now to hit these lists. I don’t disagree that there will be more books on the market, but I do disagree that there will be less of a chance to hit the lists. I actually think there is more of an opportunity for authors to carve out their audiences and expand the reach.
Thanks, Jen. You have a gift for targeting and presenting valuable data.
Appreciate it! LT
Here in Canada, ISBN numbers are free.
I’ve read where each format needs a unique ISBN, but I’m not totally sold on that. For my Shadows in the Stone novel, I have four: soft cover, hard cover, Kindle and Smashwords. I was going to use the same for Kindle and Smashwords, but if for some reason I needed to track sales by the ISBN, I wanted to be able to do that.
Are they useful? I assume they must be. Searching by the numberwill easily identify the book in question, and in this electonic age, specific searches are very important.