ISBNs and Barcodes

To get taken seriously and to measure your sales, every book needs an ISBN. This is the 13-digit code that sits on the back cover of your book. It has a unique identifier and may contain pricing information if you want it to.

Getting an ISBN means dealing with either Nielsen or Bowker, two big, unwieldly companies. We’ve got a great relationship with both. In fact, we bought over 1,000 ISBNs this year, so we’re easily able to procure ISBNs for you, whether you need one, or one hundred thousand.

While this is a time-saving service for you, you may be aware that you can get a free ISBN from Amazon KDP. We actually don’t recommend this for a few reasons, but the main one is that you will definitely not be recognised as the publisher and the book industry tends to frown on these ISBNs.

The other consideration is that while Amazon have a lovely process for generating your cover barcode from your ISBN (whether you purchased it or not) and placing it on your back cover, Ingram won’t do this for you. You need to design and create your own barcode and add it to your book design yourself.

If you’re using our services to design your book cover, we’ll throw this one in for free, but if you’re stuck with ISBNs and barcodes, we can help you quickly and easily.

Drop us a line today and we’ll get started.