Bar codes

Greenwolf103

I know where to obtain an EAN bar code but how do they get put on your back cover? Is it sent electronically and you just paste it on there? I'm not in favor of the adhesive bar codes...
 

gdkess

You can have an electronic file for it, the adhesive stick-ons, or buy a machine that will apply the bar codes. The same folks on the Web who will sell you a bar code will sell you the various means to use it. I've never found their discussions of services very clear, however. Good luck in figuring it out.

http://www.editsbooks.com
Finding Go! Matching Questions and Resources in Getting Published, Gary Kessler and Carol Kluz (Winterwolf)
 

maestrowork

Or you can get a image file of it and put onto your backcover graphics.
 

preyer

if i recall, that was a job for the guys who actually printed my books. i want to say i gave them negatives of my front, spine, and cover art and they fit the bar code in by mysterious means. my typesetter and printer had discussions, though, so maybe they worked those details out between the two of them. my printer, peterson publishing out of ann arbor, mich., preferred negatives as opposed to electronic media. actually, at the time, they charged more for it, but that was because my computer is a PC and they worked off a MAC, as i recall. that was also five or more years ago, so i'm sure things have changed quite a bit.

it's a detail you may not even have to mess with, just be sure to ask the printer beforehand. if you're typesetting it yourself, i'd imagine that putting it on the back cover would be relatively simple. not to sound harsh, but if you can't accomplish putting your bar code on your back cover, maybe typesetting a whole book is a little out of your league right now. my typesetter was an old friend of mine who worked for a newspaper doing such things, and though mine was her first book she said she'd never do it again for what i paid her, which wound-up being around a thousand bucks. then again, i've not checked out any self-publishing programmes, so maybe that's changed a lot, too, because there sure wasn't @#%$ to get excited about back then.

yeah, my experiences are outdated. i'm curious, though, about printers who try to extort extra fees because 'your programme isn't compatible with our computers, so we'll have to typeset it ourselves for a modest $1500.' i wonder if that's ever happened. my suggestion is to be anal: find a printer first and find out what things they'll do for free, like barcode insertion, how much their 'services' cost, if you typeset it yourself will it be a problem, and if you have to use negatives for the cover matter. i searched long and hard for a good printing house, and came up craps, obviously, in all cases until i happened upon peterson. they had the best services, price and quality of the ones i'd looked at. just a thought while sorta on the topic. (they were a week late delivering my books, though, and that pissed me off despite knowing it's probably fairly par for the course for a small-timer like me.)

have you purchased your bar codes yet?
 

Greenwolf103

I haven't been able to purchase the bar codes yet because I don't have an ISBN number yet ($$$). The printer I am going with is doing the typesetting free of charge as well as taking care of inserting the bar code. They just said to e-mail them the file when I get it and then they'll take care of it.

I'd be wary of companies that charged that high of a fee for something like that, too. That quote is ridiculous.
 

preyer

back then at least, that was very much a typical typesetting fee. be sure to insist on seeing a typeset copy before having anything printed. naturally, it won't be on the same paper and there will be all sorts of crop lines and such, but the scale should be there. like i said, i'm not sure how a vanity press handles that, but i reckon any reputable printer would show you basically how things will look.

before choosing a book printer, i also highly recommend asking for sample books. if they can't provide you samples, i'd have a hard time trusting them.

i screwed up and bought the most expensive isbn/bar code package they had, which i believe ran around $600, maybe more, i don't recall off-hand. i should have been much more conservative/realistic.

my printer only accepted things on zip disk, which tells you how long ago i'd done this, heh heh. now, e-mailing it probably is acceptable. my typesetter, though, earned her money because i handed her the book i printed off from about 12 floppies from my word processor (an actual old word processor, not a word processing *programme*), so, yeah, what i paid her was a very fair deal on my part. she did an amazing job, though. if i had to learn all the stuff she knew how to do i'd still be trying to get it done. if your printer is going to do it for free, man i'd jump on that, but i'd also want to see what 'free' gets me. just remember that for whatever reason there are a lot of shady people in this business and 'free' sometimes comes with some heavy caveats.
 

Greenwolf103

I remember reading somewhere that if you want your book to be sold in bookstores and through online retailers like Amazon.com, then it needs a bar code. That's pretty much what the bar code can do for your book. I think they also said that, without a bar code, you can sell it through your site or by hand.
 

The Geek

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The printer I've used did it for me. I supplied the cover file and left a white box for the code (as per their specs). I gave them the ISBN number and the generated the code and inserted it, for no extra fee. You shouldn't have to pay much, if anything, to have it added.
 

LucyEllenH

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The Geek said:
The printer I've used did it for me. I supplied the cover file and left a white box for the code (as per their specs). I gave them the ISBN number and the generated the code and inserted it, for no extra fee. You shouldn't have to pay much, if anything, to have it added.
That's been my experience as well, more or less. One printer wanted $20 to generate the bar code (I went ahead with it because their overall prices were excellent); the next did it for free. I've seen quotes up to $85 for what is apparently a fairly simple software application.
 

The Geek

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LucyEllenH said:
That's been my experience as well, more or less. One printer wanted $20 to generate the bar code (I went ahead with it because their overall prices were excellent); the next did it for free. I've seen quotes up to $85 for what is apparently a fairly simple software application.

Yep. It's like when a auto mechanic charges you $65 to hook your car to a computer to diagnose an electric problem. It takes, literally, 30 seconds to do it. ;)
 

logos1234567

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If you get a barcode makes sure it is one that will generate a 13 digit isbn number too - not just a current one, otherwise you will be screwed next year when the isbns switch over to 13 digits.

$1000 to typeset?!!!! Diggory Press do a full typset for £40 (about US$80), including inserting all the chapter headers etc. I'd do it for about that figure too.:)
 

cool_st_elizabeth

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The printer I use, which is a POD printer, Lightning Source, Inc., supplied the bar code at no cost. It has the 10-digit ISBN at the top, then the stripes, then the 13-digit code at the bottom. I did the cover myself & pasted the barcode onto it, no problems at all.