Understanding What ISBNs Are and What They Bring to Your Book
Every book’s content, format, structure, themes, ideas, and personality are unique. Some books may seem similar to others, even closely sharing titles, but they are each different. To best tell books apart, each one is assigned an International Standard Book Number, or an ISBN. All books available in libraries and sold at major retailers have a unique ISBN to identify it.
When someone scans or searches a specific book’s ISBN, they get a wealth of information about the book. This includes the book’s title, author, edition, binding, publisher, and publishing date, which is everything needed to find it.
These numbers are 13 digits long and are assigned to every book, specifically each version of the book published. The numbers have a specific format based on the publishing location, language, publisher, and specific book. It is important for authors to understand what an ISBN is to best engage in the publishing process.
Elements of an ISBN
As previously stated, ISBNs are 13 digits long. Before 2007, however, they were 10 digits long. The increase in length is attributed to the consistent increase in published books.
To look at a sample of an ISBN, take any book near you. The ISBN is usually located on the back right next to the barcode. Do not confuse the ISBN with the barcode number; they are separate but similar identifiers. ISBNs consist of five parts, often separated by hyphens. Together, these form the 13-digit ISBN.
Prefix
The prefix of the ISBN is the first three numbers at the beginning. When the length expanded from 10 to 13, the prefix was added to distinguish the old codes from the new inventory. The prefix is almost always 978 or 979, with 978 representing the older codes and 979 the newer ones.
Registration Group
The registration group of the ISBN comes from the country of origin and language of the book. This is often based on the location of the author or publisher, but does not represent copyright or intellectual property. This part of the ISBN ranges from one to five digits.
Books published in English in America are usually in group 1 or 2. Some countries (often smaller ones) or languages have one registration group, while others can have multiple. For example, Chile only has one group (956), while Iran has three (600, 622, and 964).
Registrant Element
The registrant element of an ISBN represents the publisher or imprint releasing a given book. It is consistent between all publications from the publisher. Depending on the size of the publisher and their catalog, this can be one to seven digits long. The registrant code for all of Cloverly’s books is 89743.
Publication Element
The next digits of the ISBN are the publication element. This is the part that individualizes your book from all others. Books from your country, published by your publisher, are usually the same up to this point. This can be up to six digits long, and each edition of your book has a unique publication element.
Check Digit
The last digit in any ISBN is the check digit. This acts as an error check in the ISBN and is specifically calculated from the numbers in the ISBN. Authors do not typically have to worry about calculating the check digit.
Getting an ISBN
If you are self-publishing your book, you can purchase as many ISBNs as you need. As discussed, every edition of your book needs a unique ISBN — paperback, hardcover, eBook, audiobook.
While the Library of Congress uses ISBNs to catalog their books, they are not the entity that assigns them. Bowker Publishing Services is the company that is used for selling and assigning ISBNs. They sell single ISBNs as well as bulk sales. Every country has their own providers for this, but Bowker is the one for the United States.
However, as a publisher, Cloverly Christian provides the ISBNs for each and every book we publish. Instead of bogging you in the weeds of publishing technicalities, you can focus on your book. No matter how many editions of your book we are publishing, each will get their own ISBN.
