Wednesday, December 4, 2013
If you’re like most first-time authors, getting your ISBN numbers is the last thing you want to think about. But at some point you’re going to have to go to the Bowker website, get an account at MyIdentifiers.com, and assign your books their ISBN numbers. I recommend doing this at least a month before publication date. More if you’re sending out advance review copies. It’s a simple process but it can be time-consuming to fill out all the forms. Here’s what you have to do, and why.
1. Visit
https://www.myidentifiers.com/isbn/main and buy 10 ISBNs for $250.
Why 10? You’ll need one ISBN number for the print edition of your book, no matter where it’s sold. Common print book creation, sales, and distribution options include CreateSpace, IngramSpark, Lightning Source, Lulu, and Vook.
You’ll need another ISBN for ebook sales through each ebook sales channel you use. That could be Smashwords, Kindle, Bookbaby, Vook, IngramSpark, or elsewhere. So for ebooks, when you distribute through Smashwords, that’s one sales channel, and when you sell through the Amazon Kindle store, that’s another.
If you’re not using a distribution service, but are selling ebooks on your own via your website using PayPal, eJunkie, Selz, or PigeonLab, then you’ll need to assign one ISBN per format: one for the EPUB version and another to the Kindle version of your book.
If you create a multimedia book (using Aerbook, for example), that’s another ISBN. And the audiobook gets yet another. So some of you need to ask, is 10 enough?
2. When you check out, you’ll have the opportunity to buy a bunch of other stuff, including a bar code for $25. You might as well buy a bar code now, because you’ll need one for the print edition of your book. (Once you get it via email, make sure to follow the instructions on how to place it in the back cover art.) So now you’ve spent $250 + $25 = $275.
3. When you click the CHECKOUT button you may see an offer to upgrade to “Bowker Self-Publisher Prime” and two higher-priced premium services.
If you have not yet created your ebook consider the “Bowker Self-Publisher Prime” service, because ebook formatting can be a pain and Vook is a good service. I trust their partnership. The Vook package includes ebook distribution, but they also have a new print distribution service. So here’s a chance to centralize your bookselling activities. You’ll get two bar codes for the money, too – I don’t quite know why, because you only need one per print book, but what the heck. (The two more expensive premium levels include a “look inside” widget, but I’m not convinced those are worth the money, especially since Amazon and other distributors already let authors determine how much “preview” a reader gets. So for now, I’m not encouraging this.) If you choose the “Bowker Self-Publisher Prime” service, make sure to remove the ISBN and bar code purchases. So your current total should be $350.
4. Now register and create a Bowker My Identifier Services account
https://www.myidentifiers.com/createAccount and sign in.
5. After you sign in, fill in all your account data. I recommend getting a P.O. Box so that you don’t divulge your personal information. (This goes for your web hosting and domain name services, too.) Then choose My Account > Manage ISBNs.
6. On the Manage ISBNs page you’ll see all the ISBN numbers you bought. It doesn’t matter which book format you assign to which ISBN number, but I like to give my print version the first available number, and follow by assigning ISBN numbers to sales channels or formats. (Remember, one ISBN number per sales channel, such as Smashwords, IngramSpark, Vook, Lulu, or Lightning Source. Unless you are self-distributing and uploading to the online stores on your own, in which case you will assign one ISBN to the EPUB and one ISBN to the Kindle format.)
Note the red X and yellow triangular symbols that mean something’s not correct or complete.
7. Gather your metadata (
make sure to use good metadata!), book description, information and assets. You’ll need every little detail about each format of your book: title, subtitle, author, publication date, copyright year, width, height, thickness, format (paperback, EPUB, etc.), number of illustrations, and pricing for the USA and Canada (and other countries, if applicable). Plus you’ll need a cover image and PDF file of the full text for your book, so that it can be indexed to return search results. (It won’t be displayed freely on the web.) Here’s one of my pages.
7. Fill out all four pages of information – you don’t have to do it all at once. As you can see in the image above, the pages are labeled:
Title & Cover
Contributors
Format & Size
Sales & Pricing
Just work your way through them, filling out the information you can, and leaving the rest blank. It’ll save what you enter. The system can be a bit slow and cumbersome, so make sure that when you hit SAVE, you leave enough time for the information to process.
So you see, buying your ISBNs is just one step, which doesn’t take very long. It’s filling out the information that can be time consuming. So don’t wait too long!
There’s lots more information about ISBNs, metadata, and good book discovery practices in my two books. To understand the self-publishing ecosystem, read How to Self-Publish Your Book, which was created as a collection of my PBS Mediashift columns, updated and in book form.
When you’re ready to actually do it, get my Self-Publishing Boot Camp Guide for Authors. This is a manual you’ll refer to again and again. This guidebook evolved from my Self-Publishing Boot Camp workshops.
Lots of people are buying both. The first as a reader, the second as a guide.
Remember, if you have any questions, just use the contact form down there in the lower right-hand corner of my website. I’ll be glad to answer your questions!