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Did you purchase an official ISBN from Bowker?
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Thank you so much! I really appreciate it. I want to learn all I can before making publishing decisions, but as I said, I'm under a pretty tight deadline.
Before you invest in ISBNs at all I recommend reading this article by Hugh Howey. Certainly get the free ones from Createspace etc., but it may not be worth your while to have the others at all. (I also recommend that article for all indie authors in general. Lots of useful info there.)
I would spend the $250 (or whatever the current price is) to get the 10 ISBN batch. It lends credibility to the book, allows you to establish a publishing house and registers your book with the Library of Congress officially for copyright purposes. If you really think you only have one book in you, you might be able to partner with other writers on Goodreads to create an eBook coop.However, since most writer's first books are never their best effort, I suspect you will appreciate the purchase in retrospect even if you coop.
No, go to myidentifiers.com (search for bowker) and create your accout. No paperwork, no licenses. They will create your account and walk you through the process. I have published four eBooks with ISBNs on Kindle, Nook and iBooks with no problems. All are registered with the Library of Congress.
Hm, I just looked up what needs to be done to get a book into the Library of Congress, and it looks like there's lots of stuff that must be done with applications, creating a publishing company, and such before participating in the CIP program. Unfortunately, the more I read, the more complicated everything seems. I think Latin is easier to read than most of this legal stuff.
Brittany - the LOC is remarkably supportive of Big Publishing houses, but not Indie and certainly not self-published. Even if you set up a company, you will need to have titles by multiple authors before they will bring you into the CIP program.Something you can can do is apply for a Preassigned Control Number. They will not generate CIP data based off your text, but you will still be entered in the catalog.
http://www.loc.gov/publish/pcn
Keep pushing them. They won't change until enough voices in the industry demand it!
Here in Canada, ISBN's are free. I get four for each book, one for each of Kindle, paperback, Smashwords, and Google Play. We are also required by law to send copies to Legal Archive, our equivalent of Library of Congress.
Victoria, you may be right. Bowker makes it look like they're filing the book with the LOC, but when I looked for the LCN, I couldn't find one. However, when I went online to the LOC to file for an application the application itself was remarkably simple. Its a short form that only requires an address, a web site and a publishing history. If someone has published their own work before through a distributor like Amazon or smashwords they should at least file the application and see what happens.
I'm new here, and am hoping to get some advice on indie publishing. I'm currently in the editing stage of my Beauty and the Beast retelling, Before Beauty. My plan is to publish with KDP, Smashwords, and CreateSpace within the next six weeks. (It's amazing how much motivation your first baby's due date brings, right?) My question is whether you think it would be worth it to purchase a set of official ISBNs. I'm also working/planning six other books, so I would definitely put the ISBNs to use. I'm just not sure if you think the cost of the ISBNs is justified when looking at the avenues I'm planning on publishing in.
Thank you in advance for your time and advice!
P.S. If you're interested, the first rough draft of my chapter is posted on my profile writing section:
https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/...