To ISBN, or Not to ISBN?
I had an interesting conversation with a bookstore owner about self-publishing and purchasing ISBN numbers. His take on it was: for most book shoppers online, if you are not in Amazon you do not exist. He also stressed that if you want people to special order your book from a local brick and motar bookstore you need to make sure your book is listed in Ingram's (the big book wholesaler's) database.
I can see his point, so many book sales come from word of mouth recommendations, where somebody suggests an author and title. The person hearing about an author is going to then look in Amazon or maybe BN.com, or ask their local bookseller. Most small US booksellers prefer to place special orders through Ingram because of consolidated shipping etc. Likewise many people are not going to bother opening an account with you, you publisher or whoever fullfills book sales for you. But they trust Amazon or BN.com and chances are if they buy online they already have an account set up with them making it easier to order. Also do not forget the free shipping and discounts offered from Amazon and the like, if your publisher is charging full price for your book plus full shipping many people will prefer to buy from places like Amazon and take advantage of the dicounts. And that is half the trick to sales is overcoming objections and lowering the bar to purchasing your book.
The question comes down to objectively analysing how good you think your book is and if you think it is worth spending the extra money required to get an ISBN, pricing and barcodes printed on the book.
2 Comments:
One other thing to consider when self-publishing is why you want the book published. If you merely want a few copies of your book for family and friends and to leave on the coffee table for guests to look through, do not go to the expense.
You can get an ISBN directly from Bowkers, and that will open up Amazon, B&N, and your corner bookstore for sales, but you must promote and guarantee the delivery yourself, if you do not get the ISBN through a listed publisher/distributor. The first four numbers identify the publisher/distributor/responsible-for-delivery agent.
That is good advice maitaman. I think the key is, making sure you are in those Amazon and Ingram databases if you intend the book to be for general distribution. Now you also want to make sure the information to order your other books, like the URL to your website, is also printed in the book. That way if not all of one's books have ISBN's fans still know how to order.
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