Wrong ISBNs Pulled from Ingram, etc.

[Untreed]

I know that things are pretty crazy right now since Amazon's data has fled, and I've been trying to rebuild missing information from the books we've published one by one. I'm noticing that a lot of ISBNs are absolutely wrong and that these are being provided by sources both listed as acceptable (Ingram) and not (B&N). This may have predated the big change, I can't say for sure.

My question is whether anyone else has noticed this happening with other titles and if anyone knows if anything can be done to prevent it.

One thing worth noting, we only publish ebooks. Not sure if that could be a problem for how the data is being pulled or not.

Any help or information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
-Brendan

[Vicky]

There are some wonky things going on for sure. Can you link some examples that you've noticed?

[Untreed]

As an example, this is the book with the correct ISBN:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11...

There should be no other edition, but this also shows up with an ISBN we don't use:

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11...

The ISBNs in the second are from B&N and they are wrong.

[Amanda]

The second book isn't actually using an ISBN. The ISBN 10 was completely false (I deleted it) and the ISBN 13 number is actually a BN ID number (identifies the book in the Barnes & Noble catalog.

[Untreed]

Amanda wrote: "The second book isn't actually using an ISBN. The ISBN 10 was completely false (I deleted it) and the ISBN 13 number is actually a BN ID number (identifies the book in the Barnes & Noble catalog."

I'm assuming that some automated process is pulling the B&N sku and placing it in the ISBN field. Do you know if there's a way to prevent this from happening? I don't even know if this is the result of recent changes made on the Goodreads backend or a longstanding system issue.

[Amanda]

I think this is from back when Goodreads was importing data from Barnes & Noble. They stopped importing from BN a few months ago. No new books should have this issue, but older ones may still need a little clean up.

[Untreed]

Amanda wrote: "I think this is from back when Goodreads was importing data from Barnes & Noble. They stopped importing from BN a few months ago. No new books should have this issue, but older ones may still need..."

Is this a case where I should delete the duplicate copies with the B&N/etc. editions? While I can't imagine anyone cares what version they're looking at I am concerned about what other information is being ported over. We also have begun listing our titles for sale on Goodreads and I don't want there to be any complications arising from duplicate entries.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Untreed wrote: "Is this a case where I should delete the duplicate copies with the B&N/etc. editions?"

No.


Untreed wrote: "While I can't imagine anyone cares what version they're looking at"

Actually, quite a few users care very much.

[Vicky]

The BNID is, more specifically, used to identify Nook books. It's rarely used to identify a paper book with a proper ISBN. Very similar to the ASIN used by Amazon to identify Kindle books.

That said - both editions are valid and will be kept in the database. A Nook user may want to record that they own the Nook version of the book as opposed to the general eBook.

[Untreed]

And I trust no complications arise from the standpoint of being a seller here?

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Vicky wrote: "It's rarely used to identify a paper book with a proper ISBN."

I don't think I've ever seen it for anything but a Nook ebook.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Untreed wrote: "And I trust no complications arise from the standpoint of being a seller here?"

Could you clarify what you mean by that?

[Untreed]

rivka wrote: "Untreed wrote: "And I trust no complications arise from the standpoint of being a seller here?"

Could you clarify what you mean by that?"

Since we're selling ebooks through Goodreads can you think of any complications which arise by a Nook sku being in the ISBN field of a title listing? I'm already a little concerned people will get confused with Kindle vs. ebook when they're looking at things so having a third option which doesn't really specify itself as specific to Nook gives me a headache when I think about it.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

I suggest running that question by our Customer Care folks (support@goodreads.com), but I can't see why it would be a problem. We have many authors and publishers who list ebooks on GR who have Nook editions listed.

[Untreed]

Thanks to all of you for helping explain things to me. I hope that given current circumstances you're not all running around dealing with people like me.