Please note: This blog has been edited as of July 2022 to reflect Ingram Spark’s publishing recommendations regarding ISBNs and alternatives to Ingram Spark. Changes are marked with the word EDIT.
Independent authors (those who have not solicited and/or been picked up by an established publishing house) have far more to concern themselves with than mere deadlines and bylines. One of their many considerations in the run-up to publishing is whether to purchase an ISBN for their works. And in the US, it’s no small consideration.
What’s an ISBN, you ask? It’s an International Standard Book Number. That 10- to 13-digit number on the back of your book, usually around the barcode, that acts like a social security number for a work. Each format in which a book is printed requires its own number to differentiate it from its like-titled brethren. So, for example, if you publish your book in hardcover, paperback, e-book, and audiobook format, each will need an ISBN of its very own.
But wait, there’s more!
- If you publish different sizes of a book (i.e.: 6” x 9” and 8” x 10”), each size needs its own ISBN.
- If you publish with different spine types (i.e.: traditional glued spine, also called “perfect,” and spiral), each of those versions needs its own ISBN.
- And e-books have added complications: because there are multiple digital file types for e-books (i.e.: epub, mobi, and pdf), some ISBN issuers would prefer each type to possess a unique number, while some publishing platforms won’t require an ISBN for an e-book at all.
Depending on what you do, it has the potential to add up—and fast.
Perhaps this wouldn’t be a wallet-wrenching concept in places like Canada, where standardized ISBNs are free to obtain. But in the US, a company called Bowker has a monopoly on the codes, and they recently upped their prices. At the time of this post, you could buy ten for $295, 100 for $575, and 1000 for $1500. Or you could buy a lone ISBN for $125 (that price, at least, has remained static for now), but this is perhaps the unlikeliest option for most authors, as many will desire at least one print and e-version for each title. And Bowker knows it.
(A note for further consideration: Bowker also sells barcodes to go along with their ISBNs in bundled packages, but many platforms will provide you with a barcode (and some may not even want a pre-purchased one attached to your book). So, do a little research on the publishing platforms you intend to use before you buy. What’s more, you can generate free barcodes to go with your ISBNs (just google a barcode generator or use this one from Dave at Kindlepreneur), so you can avoid wasting your money.)
It’s quite the racket. And not every independent author can shell out that kind of cash up front when they haven’t made any sales from their yet-unpublished books. Now, an indie author can wait to add a Bowker ISBN later, using a free one from their publishing platform (i.e.: Amazon, B&N, etc.) until they can afford a Bowker one, but changing that “serial number” could affect the stats that the author has built up in association with that original, proprietary ISBN.
Now, if your book takes off, you won’t much care because your title and author name will carry you, and things like best-selling book lists aren’t affected by a change in ISBN. But if you’re the average Joe making average sales, every little bit counts, and starting from scratch on sales rankings or reviews may be—vast understatement?—undesirable.
So, this led me to do some research on ISBNs, from Dave at Kindlepreneur to Draft2Digital to Martin Publishing Services to the Bowker website itself. Bowker has even put together a little video to help authors understand the value of purchasing an ISBN… but their cartoon characters’ messaging flies in the face of independent publishing practices, and as I’m an indie author, that was the focus of my research.
According to my sources, most indie publishing companies will give you their own free version of an ISBN to help them categorize their library of published works. Most will accept a Bowker ISBN, and some will issue one of their own in addition to a purchased code to maintain consistent tracking within their own catalog.
But no indie publishing platform will adopt the proprietary ISBN-like code of another indie publishing platform (i.e.: Draft2Digital won’t use one of Amazon’s ASIN numbers). They’ll just issue you a new one of their own. In reality, you could have free, private ISBNs coming out of your ears. (Take that, Canada!) So, the question is: why pay Bowker a premium for the privilege?
That query is exacerbated by the odd publishing platform’s policy not to include books with Bowker ISBNs in some of their distribution programs, which could make “going wide” (distributing your book through multiple platforms) a little trickier. Now, this is a rarity in most cases, but it did make me wonder what benefit a Bowker ISBN could provide. And this led me down the path of bookstores and libraries, both of which, Bowker asserts, require ISBNs and will be better able to find your work with their codes attached.
Let’s start with bookstores. Barnes and Noble is one of the last big bookstore chains out there, and they have their own publishing and distribution sector, just like Amazon. If you scroll about halfway down their FAQ page on publishing, you’ll notice that B&N will happily provide you with a free ISBN at the time of publication if you do not provide one from Bowker. Although B&N appears to provide a Bowker-registered ISBN (rather than a proprietary one, like an ASIN), they disclaim that the free ISBN they offer can only be used with B&N, much like every other indie publishing platform out there. To be fair, B&N requires an ISBN to get on their shelves… but if you publish your indie novel through them and use one of their freely provided numbers, you’ll still get there.
EDIT: Now, this doesn’t speak to the tracking practices of vendors and wholesalers, which are often the main channels through which bookstores and libraries get their books. One major wholesaler is Ingram Spark, and they apparently do not issue free ISBNs when you publish your printed copies through them, contrary to some of my sources, and recommend you buy a Bowker one for each medium you publish if you want your book in stores and libraries (rather than printing personal copies for yourself).
And I want the ability to get into libraries (should they deem me worth shelving). My Realm Riders Series fantasy novels are squarely in the YA category (young adult reading), and it turns out libraries are a great place for young adults to access books. (Who knew?!) I needed to know whether libraries would accept independently published authors’ works if the writer didn’t shell out a small fortune to tattoo Bowker numbers on their backsides.
So, I went to my local library and talked to a lovely librarian. And before you make any decisions based on what you read here or elsewhere, I recommend you do the same, as their practices may vary.
Still, allow me to summarize what my southeast-Michigan librarian told me in a straightforward sentence (and this is not a direct quote):
Librarians don’t give a realm about ISBNs.
Sure, the code can help locate a book, but librarians are often just as capable of searching for things via title and author. They’d even use Amazon as a reference for locating works if needed, especially independently published ones, which again, they’d search for by… you guessed it! Title and author.
Librarians do order their books from vendors, but they’re not paying attention to ISBNs when they do it. They’re looking for content, peer-reviewed materials, and other qualifiers to decide on the titles for their shelves. (This doesn’t mean the vendors aren’t using ISBNs to organize their warehouses, but it’s not the main identifier used by librarians when they’re picking out titles. And if you’ve suddenly imagined street hawkers yelling out dozen-digit number strings at bewildered passersby, you see my point.)
Moreover, libraries don’t pull in many indie authors’ works. But if presented with a free copy (hint, hint) or if repeatedly bombarded with requests for a title, they would certainly read and research it. Yet even then, the decision to shelve it is up to the librarian you hand it to. If you happen to leave your book in the hands of the one librarian who doesn’t like your work (or you), you’re S.O.L. (at least at that location).
More to the point, harken back to your days in school libraries. Remember those often-colorful, alpha-numeric tags on the spines of books? Remember what that process of organization was called? The Dewey Decimal System. ISBNs play no part in a library’s method of categorizing titles—those 10- to 13-digit codes have zilch to do with Dewey. Librarians seem to think of ISBNs as a facet of the publishing side of reading material—a phase in a work’s birth that has little effect on a librarian’s appraisal of the copies resting in their hands and on their shelves.
So, why in the name of a dragon’s emerald scales would an indie author still buy ISBNs from Bowker?
EDIT: Imprints and wide distribution.
ISNBs allow authors to choose which imprint is associated with their books. An imprint is a publishing company’s trade name. If you have your own publishing company, for example, you might want to point back to it by listing it as the imprint of record. The work can be reproduced through a myriad of other publishing companies, but as long as you’ve registered your Bowker ISBN to your personal publishing pagoda, that record of imprint becomes indelible—because you can never change it without issuing an entirely new and separate ISBN.
Of course, chances are good, your Bowker ISBN will feature next to an indie publishing platform’s imposed ISBN to help them identify your title within their own system.
So, the $295 question: should indie authors continue buying Bowker ISBNs?
If you have your own imprint, hell yeah. You’ve worked your butt off to create a publishing company—even if it only publishes your books—and you don’t want to reference it? Cha.
EDIT: And if you want to distribute to bookstores and libraries through a publisher that requires a Bowker ISBN to facilitate this (like Ingram Spark), yeah again. But there are alternatives to Ingram Spark, like Draft2Digital‘s D2D Print program, which provides a POD (print-on-demand) option and their own free ISBNs. As they say on their website (linked above):
“D2D Print is a Print on Demand (POD) service where your published book will be listed as in-stock through online booksellers; and, when your reader purchases your book, only then will it be printed and shipped. There’s no need to worry about inventory, stock, or stock returns with a POD service like D2D Print. Your D2D Print book will be made available to Amazon and to all distribution channels served by Ingram, including Barnes and Noble and most independent bookstores in the US.”
I reached out to D2D’s support team and asked about the disconnect between Ingram Spark’s recommendation that an author purchase ISBNs and D2D Print’s promise to supply a free version when they use Ingram Spark as a printer/distributor. A kind member of their staff replied quickly:
“… we do supply you with free ISBNs for your print books and we do use Ingram Spark as our printer. It’s part of the agreement we have with them. We have global distribution with I.S. so our ISBNs will certainly suffice for retail stores.”
While their program is still in the beta phase at the time of these edits, it is fully functional, if not perfected, and exemplifies the idea that you have alternatives.
EDIT: Personally, I established a company for writing and editing, which acts as the business to separate book profits (fingers crossed!) from my 9-5 paycheck. While it was not originally meant to be an “imprint,” should I use Bowker ISBNs, it would become one. And while I could probably scrape together the now-$295 to buy a bundle of 10 Bowker ISBNs (it was $250 when I started thinking about publication), I have to decide whether to use Ingram Spark for distribution outside of Amazon and B&N or use another distributor, so I can put those funds toward my marketing plan.
One might surmise that Bowker’s recent price hike suggests fewer and fewer indie authors are bothering (although Bowker might just be reacting to inflation). Articles like those I’ve linked to above tend to steer indie authors away from the practice, if for no other reason than to pinch a penny… or 29,500.
But even if the bundled price tag won’t break you, you need to decide, based on the platforms you publish with, whether buying an ISBN is of value or akin to buying a CD—or even a cassette—player (think iPod, youngsters). At this moment, the practice is by no means dead but appears to be trending—slowly—toward obsolescence.
-HA
Have any experience with Bowker or indie ISBNs? How’d all it go? And how has your experience affected your opinion on this debate?
Do you know whether all vendors supplying libraries and bookstores can only access indie-published works that sport Bowker ISBNs?
And if you know someone who’s struggling to make this decision (or hasn’t even realized they need to make it), please direct them here as a place to start their research. I hope it helps!
