ISBN Information on Your Self-Published Fiction Adds Value and Professional Appeal!

ISBN information imbedded in your number isn't exactly cheap and should be figured into your writing budget. My information provides you with the knowledge you need to properly obtain and register your ISBN if you plan on self-publishing your fiction books.

Though they are optional, it is highly recommended that you obtain them to increase the value of your published books and to help people find them so they can purchase your book easily.

If you are having your book published by a traditional publisher, do not purchase your own ISBN. Your publisher will assign an ISBN to your work with their publishing information within the number. This will be included in your publishers pricing.

Why is an ISBN so important? Like I said before, this number is used so your book can be found in standard book databases throughout the world once you publish and submit your book for sale. Without it, no one will be able to find your book in these national and world wide databases. Without it, you are also sometimes limited to where you can sell your books (ie. major on and offline book stores such as Amazon rarely accept work that has no ISBN).

There are two ways of obtaining your ISBN information, one if you plan on self-publishing and one if you plan on getting a fiction publisher to publish your book for you:

Method 1: (This is the cheaper and preferred method if you are self-publishing your fiction)

First, visit the only official ISBN information and application source on the Internet. Click on "Application for an ISBN Publisher Prefix" if you wish to make your purchase online, or click on the "Print form for mailing only" link to download a hard copy form to fill out and send in. The electronic ordering process is much easier if you prefer to pay with a credit card. This process also takes only 10 days, so you can get your ISBN information a lot faster.

Once you are in the application, you can either choose the $250.00 option which will order you 10 ISBNs or you can order a single ISBN for $125.00. Both of these ordering processes go through Bowker (myidentifiers.com), the only true partner of ISBN.org. An advantage for receiving 10 ISBN numbers is that you don't have to go through this process again until you run out, which is 10 books or major revisions of your books. This means you can publish up to ten of your books hard copy and electronic copy.

Method 2: (This can sometimes be a lot more expensive, you just don't directly see the costs as they are included in your publishing costs!)

You can choose fiction publishers to publish your book for you. Of course, this comes with all of the publisher's other expenses, but with the high costs comes some better advantages like submitting your book information to all of the major book stores. Like I said before, this route is more expensive and if you are on a tight budget, the first option is the best one by far if you plan on distributing your books through the standard books database.

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