Everything Authors Need to Know About ISBNs

Your book needs an ISBN. Luckily, Amazon will give you this book identification number for free. But if you have bigger goals for your book, it might not be the best choice. If you're wondering if you should accept Amazon's free ISBN or buy your own, or maybe you still don't even know what the heck I'm talking about, well then stick around because this video is for you. Hi, I'm Julie the Book Broad with Book Launchers, your professional self publishing services team. Get ready. There's a lot of acronyms coming, like publishing, Alphabet soup. ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number. It's that number right here on the barcode on the back of the book. This 10 or 13 digit number identifies a specific book or an edition of a book or a book like product, like an audiobook. It also identifies a book's physical properties like trim size, page count and binding type. Retailers, libraries and distributors use this number to search for books because it helps simplify the whole supply process and makes your book discoverable in inventory systems. An ISBN is not the same as the ASIN, which is the Amazon Standard Identification Number, that is a block of 10 letters and numbers to identify products of all kinds, not simply books, and only used on Amazon. You can find the ASIN in the Product details section of a product page on Amazon, where you find your book metadata. Once your ebook is published on kdp, Amazon assigns it a unique asin, which will help it be identifiable on Kindle and Kindle only. If you don't want your ebook to be accessible through other retailers, you can call it a day with the asin, but keep in mind that this is a unique identifier exclusively for Amazon and Amazon marketplaces. So if someone's hunting for your book on Amazon, they can search by asin, but if they're searching on other retailers or distributors like Barnes and Noble or Chapters or their local library, the ASIN is useless. It only works on Amazon. Your ISBN, on the other hand, works for the entire global supply chain. So with the ISBN, readers can search for your book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Apple, Google Play, their local libraries in Greenland if they need to. You do not need an ISBN to publish an ebook on kdp, but you will need an ISBN to publish a paperback on kdp. Now you have the option of getting a free ISBN provided from Amazon, or you can purchase your own ISBN through Bowker, which is a supply chain services company and the exclusive place to snag a legit ISBN in the us. If you buy your own ISBN, you'll be able to Provide that number to Amazon during your title setup. So now I know you're wondering, why bother buying your ISBN with your hard earned money when Amazon's just handing them out for free. I'm so glad you asked. A free ISBN won't let you be listed as the publisher. If you go with the free ISBN, KDP or Amazon are listed as the publisher. You will still own the copyright to your book. Ownership stays yours. But this can make you look just a little less professional compared to having your own imprint, which you can learn more about in this video right here. But more importantly, this is the big thing that you're sacrificing with that free ISBN. Like an ASIN, KDP's free ISBN can only be used on KDP for distribution on Amazon. You won't be able to use that free ISBN with another publisher or self publishing service. So you can't just take that free ISBN and upload your book to Ingram and sell through there. That free ISBN sounds like a hot deal, but it locks you into KDP print. Sure, you can sign up for expanded distribution on KDP Print, and in theory that would make your book widely available. But the reality is you need your book on Ingram's catalog to be truly widely available. Ultimately, bookstores and other online retailers won't buy from Amazon. Now, libraries do buy from Amazon. So you can still potentially get your free ISBN labeled book into a local library. But you're going to have challenges with almost all other distribution channels. So if you want to sell your book anywhere else, you'll need to get your own ISBN now, good news for my fellow Canadians. ISBNs are free. You can get your own through ISBN Canada Online system and not spend a penny in the us Though you'll have to buy them through Boker. Remember, you need one for every format of your book that's available. So ebook, print, audiobook, every format gets its own unique ISBN. By the way, if you're doing a softcover and a hardcover, you need one for each. Those are different formats. A single ISBN from Bowker currently costs $125, so you might as well use their pack of 10 for $2.95 rather than just getting one. Especially if you have multiple formats, it's obviously a better deal. And you're going to need numbers for every format anyways. And these numbers don't expire, so you can use them for future books. Want a bonus tip? Okay. But first you need to hit that like button. Thanks. All right, so here's that bonus I promised you. Do not buy anything else. Nothing else from Bowker, just the ISBN. They try to sell you a barcode and some other stuff that you do not need. You can create barcodes for free using free tools on the Internet. KDP print upload will do it. Or or your book cover designer can do it. Do not pay for that. You're welcome. Now, while you're counting how many isbns you need, maybe you're also wondering if you should make an audiobook. This video right here will help you with that decision. If you're good with that, then YouTube recommends you check out this video right here. Either way, head on over. I'm waiting for you.