Amazon self publishing

Umgowa, ePub is short for "electronic publication" and is the standard file format for use on PCs and other readers. mobi is another electronic file format that is supported by Amazon's Kindle. PDF stands for "portable digital format" and isn't used for ereaders but has a wide variety of uses. I send PDFs of my books to people who don't have ereaders. (The PDF is identical to my paperback version.)

You do not need an ISBN for your ebook; KDP will assign your ebook an ASIN.

Purchasing ISBNs is a personal choice. If you do decide you want to purchase them, you will need one for each format you publish in--one for ebook, one for paperback--and if you go that far, one each for hardcover book and audiobook.

In support of Mclesh and Marissa's guidance, you can check out the advice at its source . . .

https://www.isbn-international.org/content/guidelines-assignment-e-books

Amazon will provide free ISBN's for both the ebook and the paperback.

I personally write and format the ebook first. A Word document is the preferred format for ebook upload. Then once everything his happy and all mistakes are vetted, then I will reformat for the paperback, which will end up as a PDF, which is the format used to upload to KDP Print.

Umgowa said:

Marissa D: How do I purchase one for ebook?

Click to expand...

The same way you purchase one for paperback or audio or hardcover. They don't come "pre-packaged" as being for any one format--when you buy them and then assign them to your book up on the site, you designate what format it's for.

If you plan on publishing more than one book, you get a slightly better deal if you purchase a block of ten. ISBNs are, alas, expensive for US authors.

I'll answer since I'm here. : )

On Amazon, for ebooks, you are given an ASIN. This is the identifying number used for your ebook in the Amazon system. You must use this number for your Amazon ebook, and you can't use it anywhere else. The good news is that it's free.

If you want to publish a paperback on Amazon, you'll need an ISBN. This can be purchased from Bowker or Amazon. If you purchase from Amazon, the last time I did it was ten bucks. But as noted upthread, this ISBN can only be used on Amazon. Bowker is way more expensive, but this ISBN can also be used at other vendors (B&N, Kobo, Apple, etc.) That's because the publisher of record is your publishing company, not Amazon.

To publish an ebook on other vendors, you'll need another ISBN. The good news is that you can get one for free from either Smashwords or Draft2Digital (I recommend the latter). The reason I recommend D2D is that you'll need an epub for some reviewers (epubs are the format used by iPads), and D2D will make you one from your Word document.

The above is factual. From here I move on to opinion.

I wouldn't bother with buying ISBNs from Bowker early in the game. They're very expensive, and almost all sales will come from ebooks. Between Amazon and D2D, you can handle all that for free.

Buying an ISBN for a physical book early on is an indulgence. You can certainly do it (I did), but it won't net you anything in sales.

If you must hold a physical copy of your book to feel like a "real" author, then consider getting the Amazon ISBN. It's true that you can't sell physical books with this ISBN anywhere else. But unless you are BIG into book fairs, it's unlikely you'll sell enough physical books for it to matter anyway. For most authors it's an investment in emotional satisfaction--a real, no-kidding book you can hold in your hands.

But I would strongly recommend against throwing hundreds of dollars into something (like ISBNs from Bowker) that's unlikely to break even when you're starting out. We need to protect ourselves against running too far into the red. But that bit's just my opinion. : )

ETA:
According to post 13, Amazon doesn't charge you for a print ISBN anymore.

An ISBN is an ISBN, whether it's applied to an ebook, a paperback book, a hardcover, or an audiobook. One title may have multiple ISBNs linked to it, one for each format that it has been published in or if it has been republished, say, with additional material added in like a new foreword, for example.

I don't know if this will help, but the purpose of an ISBN is to identify the format of the book so that people don't accidentally buy the wrong version. This practice pre-dates ebooks. The ISBN also identifies the publisher of the book.

If you use an Amazon ISBN, then Amazon is listed as the publisher. If you buy your own ISBN, then you are listed as the publisher. I've talked to some librarians about this and they do prefer the author's ISBN over Amazon's, but I'm not sure that I've interviewed a wide enough sampling to be authoritative on that. (grin)

Because Amazon sells a mobi formatted ebook, that means that if you buy from Amazon for an ereader, you're only going to get the mobi format. You can't get the wrong one. This is why even Bowker has said that the ISBN for the mobi version is optional and you can just use Amazon's ASIN number, the number they assign to your ebook.

While it is true that no one else will sell a paperback with a free Amazon ISBN, that doesn't mean that you can't buy a dozen copies and sell them. You aren't cutting Amazon out of their profit or pretending that they aren't assigned to that ISBN. You're just buying copies of your own book and selling them yourself.

As was mentioned earlier, ISBNs are a bit of a luxury. I happen to have them and use them, but I have a bunch of friends who haven't...and as was mentioned, doesn't seem to have affected the bottom line one way or another.

CathleenT said:

I'll answer since I'm here. : )
If you want to publish a paperback on Amazon, you'll need an ISBN. This can be purchased from Bowker or Amazon. If you purchase from Amazon, the last time I did it was ten bucks. But as noted upthread, this ISBN can only be used on Amazon. Bowker is way more expensive, but this ISBN can also be used at other vendors (B&N, Kobo, Apple, etc.) That's because the publisher of record is your publishing company, not Amazon.

Click to expand...

I'm a little bit confused on what you are saying here. Are you referring to a paperback sold on Amazon that is not published through KDP Print? Because KDP Print will assign you a free one if you want.

If ISBNs are free with KDP print, great. Last time I bought an ISBN for a paperback was years ago and Createspace was still charging ten dollars.