Should I Have My Own ISBNs as a Self-Published Author?

In this blog post, we will be looking at why you might decide to buy your own ISBNs as a self-publishing author. There are a number of good reasons why you would do this, but equally, there are reasons why you might not want to.

With self-publishing, it’s all up to you to choose what suits you and your book best, one of the many advantages of this method of publishing over the traditional publishing house method. Your decision will probably depend on a number of factors, such as what your book is, the format you intend to sell it in and the audience it is aimed at.

If you are self-publishing a book, it will most likely need an ISBN or some kind of identifier. Even if you only publish it as an ebook, it will have to be given some sort of number for distribution on your chosen platform. Amazon and Barnes & Noble both use their own types of identifier (not ISBNs), whereas some self-publishing platforms such as Smashwords will assign their own ISBNs to your book.

Having Your Own ISBNs Means That You Are the Publisher

What does this mean for you and your book? Well, one advantage of having your own ISBN is that you will be listed as the publisher, even if this is just your name rather than a business one. This means that when people look to see who published the book, they can see it is you – which is fair enough after you’ve done all the hard work of self-publishing!

Now imagine that you didn’t buy your own ISBN, instead letting the distributor, such as Smashwords, assign their own. If anyone looks to see who published it, Smashwords (or whoever) will be listed as the publisher – despite them only really being a platform you worked with. How much this bothers you is a personal decision and you may well decide that you don’t mind.

After all, it is certainly cheaper to let them do this for you and it also means that you don’t need to spend any time sorting out ISBNs. This is especially true if your book is mostly aimed at family and friends as gifts, for example. It probably doesn’t really matter who the publisher is in this scenario. On the other hand, if you are planning to sell to the general public, you may decide you want to be listed as the publisher.

Having Your Own ISBNs Means More Cost and Effort

You can see how it might be easier to let the distributors assign their own ISBNs to your book. This is one disadvantage of getting your own ISBN – you are responsible for buying them and assigning them to your book and each new edition, rather than just letting one be given to it automatically. Of course, buying your own ISBNs is also more expensive than not, although you may well decide that this is an acceptable expense.

All of this will depend on how much time and money you are able to (and want to) spend on your book, which will, in turn, depend on your reason for self-publishing and how formally you are planning on doing this. If it is a casual publication for friends and family, there is little point in devoting resources to getting your own ISBNs. On the other hand, if you would like your book to look more professional, ISBNs may be a good investment.

Having Your Own ISBNs Means One Universal Identifier

However, another disadvantage of not getting your own ISBNs becomes apparent if you plan to publish on a variety of platforms. Not all distributors use the same channels, so to maximise sales, you may decide to use more than one. As mentioned above, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords all give ISBNs or some sort of identifier to your book, but this will be exclusive to them.

If you start by using Amazon and Barnes & Noble, you will already have two identifiers for your book. You might then decide you want to use another distributor, such as Draft2Digital, to access additional retail channels, but none of your book’s existing identifiers will work with Draft2Digital, so it will need to be assigned another by them. You then have three different identifiers, all for the same book! You then might find you need more in the future if you want to use any other distributors.

All of this means that you have a single book with a lot of identifiers, which looks unprofessional to places such as bookstores. Some may refuse to stock your book based on this; indeed, some may refuse any books with certain distributors listed as the publisher. Therefore, if you would like your book to be available in physical stores, buying an ISBN is probably not just a worthwhile investment, but also necessary in a lot of cases.

In addition, if you want your book to still be accessible in years to come, it is much better to just have one identifier. ISBNs have been around for decades and will likely be here for many more; the same cannot be said about all online retailers. For your book to survive beyond these sites, it is better for it to just have one identifier that is not linked to any particular retailer.

Wrapping Up

I hope that this helps you to make a decision about whether to have your own ISBNs. If you intend to be self-publishing again in the future and would like to treat it as a business, buying your own is definitely the way to go. It keeps you as the publisher, so all enquiries go to you, and makes it easier for people to find your book, even many years on.

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