#Kindle direct publishing isbn for free#

If you already have an ISBN for your eBook, you’ll be able to enter it during the publishing process. Once your content is published on the KDP website, will assign it a 10-digit ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number), which is unique to the eBook, and is an identification number for the Kindle Book on. Amazon’s website has this to say about ISBNs:Īn ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is not required to publish content with Kindle Direct Publishing. Amazon, for example, will assign your eBook their own tracking number, called an ASIN, which they will use to track your eBook with instead of an ISBN. Their systems are closed and don’t interoperate with the ISBN mechanism used in the physical world. The big five eBook retailers, Amazon (Kindle), Apple (iPad), Barns & Noble (Nook), Kobo and Sony don’t use ISBNs at all. You most definitely DO NOT need separate ISBNs for each format of the eBook you plan to produce, such as ePub or MOBI. However, for digital books for distribution to a Kindle, Nook, iPad, etc., (hereafter referred to as eBooks), this isn’t the case at all. If you are producing a print version of your book, you will definitely need a separate ISBN for the paperback version and another separate ISBN if you intend to produce a hardback version. However, you DO NOT need ISBNs for all these situation. It’s in their best interest after all to sell you as many ISBNs as they possibly can. It’s perhaps not surprising given the monopoly Bowker has on ISBNs. This is highly misleading and may lead you to believe you need more ISBNs than you actually do. This allows retailers to help the customer understand exactly which version of a title they are purchasing. If you wish to have a hard bound copy, a soft bound copy, an ePUB, a PDF, a MOBI, or even register a new version, you will need a unique ISBN for each version.

The purpose of the ISBN is to identify one specific version of a book. However, if you believe Bowker, you need an ISBN for just about every conceivable scenario. This depends on what you are publishing and how you are publishing it. For $575, you can get a block of 100, and so on. If you have to purchase a single ISBN through Bowker, you may be paying $125. Like most things, ISBNs become cheaper the more of them you buy.

#Kindle direct publishing isbn for free#

In some countries, like Canada, you may be able to obtain an ISBN for free but in others you have to pay Bowker. If you are an independent author and publishing your book yourself, you may be able to obtain a free ISBN from whomever it is you are publishing your book through. For example, here in Australia, ISBNs are distributed from Thorpe-Bowker. Depending on which country your in, the name of the distributing body might be some variation on this name. The principal distributor of ISBNs is Bowker.

Check digit is the single digit at the end of the ISBN which validates the ISBN.

Title identifier which identifies a particular title or edition of a title.

Publisher identifier which identifies a particular publisher within a group.

Group or country identifier which identifies a national or geographic grouping of publishers.

The following description of those parts is taken from the website: The 13-digit ISBN is broken down into multiple parts. The format changed from 10-digits to 13-digits in 2007. If you are searching for a book, you need a way to uniquely identify the one you want. There may be many different books that have the same title, for example. There are various reasons why it’s necessary to track books and to be able to distinguish them from each other. It’s a way to uniquely identify one book over another.

It’s a 10 or 13-digit number that uniquely identifies books and book-like products (think of things like physical books, autiobooks, etc.) published internationally. ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number. I’ll explain what ISBNs are for and then I’ll tackle why you need one and when. However, it needn’t be as expensive as you may have been led to believe. If you believe you need an ISBN not only for multiple books but for multiple versions of the same book and/or for each individual format of the book (PDF, MOBI, ePub, etc.), then this can add up quite quickly. In many cases, there’s only one source of ISBNs and this source is NOT cheap – especially if you are buying your ISBNs individually. Depending on where in the world you come from, or what route you take to get published, obtaining an ISBN can cost anywhere from nothing to literally hundreds of dollars. For many, it’s a subject that’s all too often shrouded in confusion. This a question that comes up frequently with new authors.