Request for help sorting out ISBNs

[Mike]

Hi Librarians,

I'm hoping someone can help me out with cleaning up book details for my books, as there are some issues with the ISBNs as referenced on GoodReads.

A bit of background: My first book, Sixty-One Nails, was published by Angry Robot as an imprint of HarperCollins and has a HC ISBN 0007333994. Then Angry Robot Books (ARB) left HarperCollins and became independent under Osprey Books. The books were then re-issued under new ISBNs.

First of all, the book that comes up on search for The Road to Bedlam is ISBN 0007339755, which was never published as ARB left HarperCollins before the publication date - so this book never existed, even thought the ISBN was issued prior to publication, so the ISBN does exist.

The net effect of this is that if readers are inspired to click any of the 'buy' links under the details they get a book that cannot be ordered from anywhere.

Then there is ISBN 0061994103 and 0061994227 for Sixty-One Nails and The Road to Bedlam respectively.

These are not numbers I recognise and don't seem to relate to my books except to orphaned pages on Amazon.co.uk.

Working from the publication dates on Amazon.co.uk, I suspect they may have been the ISBNs for the US publication by HarperCollins, which also didn't happen, but it doesn't register on Amazon.com, so it never got that far.

Is it best to just delete these, or will that have implications elsewhere?

Thanks for any help or advice you can offer.

[Renske]

The first book you mentioned (ISBN 0007333994) has been published, so it should stay on goodreads, even if it is no longer available. There could be people who have that edition, so it must be possible for them to shelf the right edition.

[Beth]

Then there is ISBN 0061994103 and 0061994227 for Sixty-One Nails and The Road to Bedlam respectively.

These both pull up the proper books on B&N...so they should be left in, also.

[Mike]

Renske wrote: "The first book you mentioned (ISBN 0007333994) has been published, so it should stay on goodreads, even if it is no longer available. There could be people who have that edition, so it must be poss..."

I agree, though I would prefer that an edition you can get hold of would come up as a default - is it possible to change which edition is displayed as the 'main' one?

[Mike]

Beth wrote: "Then there is ISBN 0061994103 and 0061994227 for Sixty-One Nails and The Road to Bedlam respectively.

These both pull up the proper books on B&N...so they should be left in, also."

I tried this on B&N and they cross-reference to 0857660292 and 0857660616, so the 006xxxxxxx ISBNs are probably just place-holders in case anyone types them in.

B&N have picked them up from wherever they originated from - HarperCollins list, perhaps. The books with those ISBNs don't exist - no-one can have bought or reviewed them and no-one can shelve them without referring to the incorrect ISBN.

As they will never exist, can we remove them?

(re-worded as previous post was a bit terse - apologies)

[Renske]

The default edition is the most popular edition, it isn't possible to change that.

[Mike]

Renske wrote: "The default edition is the most popular edition, it isn't possible to change that."

Thanks for clarifying that, I guess we'll have to wait until the new edition outstrips the old one. :-)