An ISBN allows libraries, booksellers, and readers across the globe to find your book. It is the Bowker identifier service that gives your book a unique number stored in a database. People search this data when looking for a book—someone-hundred million.
What Do All Those Numbers Mean?
The first number identifies the language of the book. When you see an ‘0’ or a ‘1’ it means the book is in English. ‘2’ identifies the French language, ‘3’ German, and so on.
The next group of numbers identifies the publisher and the number of ISBN’s they own.
Coming after the dash is the ‘title identifier’ to tell the publisher if it is a soft or hard cover version or an EPUB edition.
The last digit is a check number to mathematical calculate if the rest of the ISBN was correctly scanned.
Since 2007, the format changed to add ‘978’ as a prefix to create a 13 digit string of numbers, see the example below.
ISBN:978-1-64370-710-5
Language: English, published by A J Henry. Title: Missing Murder Mayhem. EPUB edition.
If your book is printed in either soft or hard cover and sold in bookstores, it must also have a barcode.
ISBN title data is listed in ‘Books in Print,’ a service used by commercial buyers. The identifying data must register each version of your book: EPUB, MOBI, hardback, softcover, and PDF: five ISBN’s, one for each.
So, Who Owns Your Work?
If you create something, and it is not a replica of another person’s work, you own the copyright of that work.
Owning such allows you to make copies and use it for publication, modify it for other purposes such as theatre scripts, film adaptations, or make the work public such as putting it on the internet.
The legal right to copy rewards you the writer for your hard work and is a big incentive to share that work widely.
In most cases—in Australia—once you die the copyright becomes part of your estate and will remain so for 70 years after.
Australian law has additional rights called Moral Rights. This allows others to re-use or alter your work, such as editing, providing authorship is attributed to you.
Your work cannot be falsely claimed by someone else as their own. Moral rights also mean your work cannot be treated in a derogatory way.
Importantly, if you use parts of someone’s work, attribution to the author or authority must be stated clearly.
The Problem With ISBN Numbers
Just because you paid hard-earned cash for an ISBN doesn’t always mean you own it. While you own 100% of the copyright of your book, it may not see you as the title owner of the identifying data.
Many operators purchase bulk ISBN’s, all registered in their company or business service name, not your name. It means you have no control over the ISBN you may have purchased at a bargain price or the data associated with it. Worse yet, it may leave you frustrated in wondering about a lack of sales. It is because no one can find you; just the ISBN title owner who does little to promote your book, and there is not much you can do about it.
Before buying an ISBN to identify your book, do the research or buy from reputable organizations
such as THROPE-Bowker Identifier Services.
Sources:
The Book Designer
Arts Law Centre of Australia: The national community legal centre for the arts
National Library of Australia
THORPE-Bowker Identifier Services
Image by Michael Jarmoluk, Pixaby
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