[IAEP] ISBN Numbers Summary.

David Farning dfarning at sugarlabs.org
Thu Mar 26 15:38:43 EDT 2009


I am still looking into that issue.

An a related issue there is a question in the publish on demand
industry of how to define a 'new edition' which requires a new ISBN.

One the other hand, when buying in blocks of 1000 the price drops to
$1.50US per number.

david

On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 2:30 PM, Sean DALY <sdaly.be at gmail.com> wrote:
> +1
>
> a good plan.
>
> Silly question...if we were to have smashing success and wish to
> publish the Sugar Manual in half a dozen or more other languages,
> would we need 5 separate numbers or would these be 5 variants on one
> number?
>
> Not that we would use up 10 numbers quickly. Just wondering.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 7:40 PM, David Farning <dfarning at sugarlabs.org> wrote:
>> I spent a couple of hours researching of ISBNs and how they apply to FM and SL.
>>
>> An ISBN is the International Standard Book Number necessary for each
>> book marketed to the book trade (bookstores and libraries). Bookstores
>> will not order a book without an ISBN... mostly because they can't.
>> Without an ISBN, there's no number for them to look up.
>>
>> This relates to Sugar Labs because Floss Manuals sells Sugar manuals
>> on Amazon.  How cool is that?  While nobody is quiting their day jobs
>> yet....  The synergy between FM and SL had great potential.
>>
>> The work flow currently is:
>> 1.  FM/SL booksprint to create the content
>> 2.  FM publishes the content.  Current they use http://www.lulu.com/
>> 3.  FM makes the content more widely available via resellers such as Amazon.
>>
>> The ISBN is the link between steps 2 and 3.  For the geeks in the
>> room, the ISBN represents a unique identifier for the book.
>>
>> Getting an ISBN
>>
>> From Lulu - The most straight forward to get an ISBN is to buy one
>> directly from lulu.  The Cost is about $150/ISBN.  The problem is that
>> Lulu owns the ISBN in the writers name.  You can't transfer the ISBN
>> to another publisher.
>>
>> From ISBN Broker - The ISBN Agency has authorize about 170 different
>> organizations to sell 'blocks' of ISBNs to publishers in different
>> geographicial regions.
>>
>> In New Zealand the national library gives away blocks of ISBNs in
>> exchange for a donation of 2 copies of each book to the national
>> library.  Cost is the cost of printing and sending two books to New
>> Zealand.
>>
>> In England the situation is similar.  Cost 6 is six books for various
>> English libraries.
>>
>> In the US http://www.bowker.com/ has exclusive rights to sell blocks of ISBNS.
>> Cost is about.
>> 10 ISBNs        $245.00
>> 100 ISBNs       $930.00
>> 1,000 ISBNs     $1,570.00
>>
>> Recomendation:
>>
>> Purchase a block of ten ISBNs from bowker in the name of Floss
>> manuals.  This allows us to identify FM as the publisher not lulu.
>>
>> Assign these ISBNs to new books as the come 'off the presses' as FM.
>>
>> After the first ten ISBNs are assigned, reassess the situation.
>>
>> If, this sounds reasonable, I'll buy the first block of ten in FM's
>> name to get the ball rolling.
>>
>> david
>> _______________________________________________
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>


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