Dismantle My Bed

After writing about how to get an ISBN for your book I got a comment from someone that actually works with Bowker ( Andy Weissberg, General Manager, Identifier Services)  with some additional info.

Apparently you now can purchase a single ISBN number from the ISBN Agency for $125.00. The application for a single ISBN can be obtained by emailing isbn-san@bowker.com. However, when I was self publishing a few years ago I do not believe that this was the case.

Mr. Weissberg also wanted to mention how you can get single ISBNs through companies like Lulu. This information was purposely left out of my initial discussion on this topic as I do not really see publishing a book through Lulu or the like as starting your own publishing company. If you are starting a publishing company then you are buying a block of ISBNs and sending off files to a printer like McNaughton to print up thousands of books at once. I am talking about offset printing and not print on demand. But, if you are into print on demand and want to be a one book publisher, then you can contact  the ISBN Agency at isbn-san@bowker.com to get info on authorized agents that have singe ISBNs. The danger in this is that if a bookstore looks up your publishing info by ISBN to place a re-order they will get that company’s info instead if your info. Why? Because they have registered the ISBN and not you.

However, if you are still interested in the whole single ISBN thing, Mr. Weissberg has graciously left his direct email address for any questions. He can be reached at andy.weissberg@bowker.com