India assigned ISBN

markoliver said:

Hi

I am almost at that moment of the book being complete, when I read advice for self publishers it advises to have your own ISBN numbers...

When I checked into the cost onlie it was around $100, where the new government portal in India as now started (6-2016) issuing international ISBN packages free of charge, does any have any experience of this ?

http://isbn.gov.in

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I haven't seen this service before, but I have seen several like it.

The others I've seen have created ISBNs without following the usual conventions, which causes all sorts of confusion with regard to genre, etc; and they've issued ISBNs which are duplicates of those issued by the more established agencies, which adds to the confusion. Because they weren't working with existing ISBN issuers the two systems didn't work together, and they were, in my opinion, not worth using. Because the books which used them didn't make it onto any of the databases which the more standard ISBNs appear in, so there were no reasons to use them. (I hope I'm making sense here: I feel like I'm rambling a bit.)

If you're going to use them make sure that the ISBNs they're issuing don't conflict with the ones from elsewhere, at least.

isnt a ISBN like a Barcode and they are the same everywhere ?

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An ISBN is a lot more than a barcode (although you can get barcodes made up from your ISBNs). It's a unique identifier for your book which is used across the book trade to identify and to some extent market your book to booksellers and librarians, and to to track sales.

And when you POD through the larger retailers they assign their own product code anyway.

Mark

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I think CreateSpace will assign its own numbers to the books they publish only if those books don't already have ISBNs. But those numbers only work on Amazon, so don't do anything near the things an ISBN does for the book. For example, if you take a CS "ISBN" into a bookshop there's a good chance it won't work on that bookshop's computer system.

Old Hack, CreateSpace requires an ISBN. You can take a free one from them, but they get listed as publisher. Or you can purchase one from them for $99 to be listed as publisher (I'm sure they buy them in bulk from Bowker...but so can individuals.) N.B., this is for using CreateSpace in the US; it's necessary to purchase ISBNs here no matter what (unlike several other countries that provide them for free.)

Marissa D said:

Old Hack, CreateSpace requires an ISBN. You can take a free one from them, but they get listed as publisher. Or you can purchase one from them for $99 to be listed as publisher (I'm sure they buy them in bulk from Bowker...but so can individuals.) N.B., this is for using CreateSpace in the US; it's necessary to purchase ISBNs here no matter what (unlike several other countries that provide them for free.)

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I was trying to be concise but yes to all that. Thank you.

It doesn't cost much more than $99 to buy at least ten ISBNs direct from the issuer, does it? It's a better route to take.

Last I checked you could purchase 10 ISBNs for $250 or thereabouts direct from Bowker--and they have frequent sales. So yes, it's a bit of a money-maker for CS.

Old Hack said:

I was trying to be concise but yes to all that. Thank you.

It doesn't cost much more than $99 to buy at least ten ISBNs direct from the issuer, does it? It's a better route to take.

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In the US currently (Bowker), it looks as if 1 will cost you $125, and 10 for $295.