Multiple issues with multiple e-book covers and ISBNs

[Drace]

This is going to be a bit of a long one, so please bear with me.

While looking up the e-book editions of the Darwath Trilogy by Barbara Hambly, I noticed several issues with the series, specifically with the cover art and ISBNs.

I was told by a librarian in a thread I made earlier to ask preliminary questions about this issue that when it comes to e-books having their cover art changed by the publisher, Goodreads standard is to move the ISBN to the edition with the most recent cover art, and treat the older cover art editions as Alternate Cover Editions. As such I would be simply requesting that change, but there's another issue I noticed: the e-book editions of the Darwath books with the most recent cover art already have ISBNs associated with them. The problem is that those ISBNs don't exist. I'll use the first book in the series, The Time of the Dark, as an example.

The Time of the Dark This e-book edition of the book has the proper ISBN number (9781453216507). You can look it up on Barnes & Noble and Kobo and find the book. Though the publisher website doesn't show ISBNs for their books, you can search that ISBN number on the website and it will take you to the book. However, this e-book edition uses different cover art than what is on the Goodreads page.

The Time of the Dark This e-book edition of the book has the cover art shown on the publisher website/B&N/other e-book sources, and should be listed as the e-book associated with the ISBN 9781453216507. However, it already has an ISBN number (9781453216514). The problem is that if you look this ISBN number up, there's no results. The publisher website doesn't have it, Barnes & Noble and Kobo don't have it, and the single result you get when Googling it is an online retailer from South Africa that is definitely not one of Goodreads' book information sources. I'm honestly not sure how that nonexistent ISBN even ended up in the system. Furthermore, there's another e-book edition with a nonexistent ISBN that gets you much the same results as the previously mentioned one: The Time of the Dark.

This exact problem occurs across all three main books of the Darwath trilogy. Cover art issues, nonexistent ISBNs, all of it.

So, with all that said, could a Goodreads Librarian please do the following for each book:

The Time of the Dark:

- Move the ISBN of this edition: The Time of the Dark (ISBN10 1453216502, ISBN13 9781453216507) to this edition: The Time of the Dark while deleting the latter edition's nonexistent ISBNs
- Mark the former edition as an ACE of the latter edition
- Delete this edition: The Time of the Dark entirely

The Walls of Air:

- Move the ISBN of this edition: The Walls of Air (ISBN10 1453216537, ISBN13 9781453216538) to this edition: The Walls of Air while deleting the latter edition's nonexistent ISBNs
- Mark the former edition as an ACE of the latter edition
- Delete this edition: The Walls of Air entirely

The Armies of Daylight:

- Move the ISBN of this edition: The Armies of Daylight (ISBN10 1453216561, ISBN13 9781453216569) to this edition: The Armies of Daylight while deleting the latter edition's nonexistent ISBNs
- Mark the former edition as an ACE of the latter edition
- Delete this edition: The Armies of Daylight entirely

Here's the publisher website if it's needed for searching and verifying information: https://openroadmedia.com/

If I used any incorrect terminology or have made any mistakes regarding Goodreads policy in my post, please let me know. I hope this is enough to explain the issue. Thank you in advance to anyone who can help out with this.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Not being able to find an ISBN listed anywhere (especially for editions published several years ago or longer) is not proof that it does not exist, nor is it a reason to delete such an edition. In general, we would only delete an edition with an INVALID (truncated ISBN13, typo) ISBN -- usually one that does not meet the check number validation.

So there may be some ACEs needed for some of these works, but moving/deleting ISBNs that appear to be perfectly valid is not needed and should not be done.

[Drace]

rivka wrote: "Not being able to find an ISBN listed anywhere (especially for editions published several years ago or longer) is not proof that it does not exist, nor is it a reason to delete such an edition. In ..."

Thank you for letting me know. I figured there would be more evidence online of the unlisted ISBNs, but most of the modern internet doesn't exactly prioritize preservation in a lot of cases.

[Drace]

Giving this thread a bump. If any librarians can take the proper measures regarding ACE, it would be much appreciated.