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By Elizabeth Burton, executive editor of Zumaya Publications

Elizabeth K. Burton, our latest contributor, is an author and executive editor of Zumaya Publications LLC of Austin, Texas, an inventory-free trade press. Welcome, Liz! – D.R.

imageThe ISBN interests want publishers of e-books to offer a unique ISBN for each electronic format the books appear in. This campaign has been going on for months. 

The rationale? Each e-format supposedly is a new edition of a book.

But that’s absurd. In fact, many independent e-book publishers would go out of business if—while offering titles in as many formats as possible—they complied with this plan.

The ISBN-related proposal would put a dent in the revenue streams of even some traditional publishers. These houses buy ISBNs in huge blocks, slashing the price to pennies, and usually offer e-books only in major DRM-lockable formats.

Going after e-book-related revenue

I’m aware that the ISBN interests in the States and elsewhere have been trying to push this concept for a many months. But it seems far from coincidental that they are suddenly even more eager to make this policy the accepted norm just as the major players in the publishing industry are waking up to the potential of e-books.

That synchronicity also explains why the ISBN organizations and their U.S. agent, R.R. Bowker, seem to be incapable of seeing beyond their own bottom line with regard to the one-ISBN-per-format concept.

Many e-smallfry not bothering with ISBNs right now

Until now, many if not most of the independent e-book publishers—the ones that focus mainly on e-books and do print editions only in limited sizes, if at all—didn’t bother with ISBNs.

They preferred to channel a larger portion of revenue back to the content creators, the authors, by paying royalties of 40-50 percent of net. Since an ISBN wasn’t required by most of the sales channels, the principal ones being the publishers’ own Web sites, purchasing the ISBN numbers was an unwarranted expense in their minds.

Bullying the little guys via retailers and distributors?

That option might no longer be available if the proposed policy becomes reality. A nameless representative of the ISBN interests stated on Twitter that once an ISBN identifier for each format was accepted as standard, the interests might negotiate with the sales channels, encouraging them to purchase ISBNs, which they could then place on any e-book format for which the publisher failed to provide numbers.

Granting that this individual may have simply been talking off the top of his or her head in the effort to persuade, this would mean that any e-book publisher which submitted a title with only a single ISBN would have all other versions of that title listing the vendor as official publisher of record.

Rights management nightmare

The rights nightmare inherent in something like that is mind-boggling.

The only alternative for small publishers, however, would be to stop dealing with those vendors and rely on their onsite sales and those through alternate channels (with less traffic and name recognition than Fictionwise et al.) for sales.

ISBN interests ignoring the impact on small publishers?

In that same discussion, what also became clear is that no one with the ISBN interests seem to have considered the financial aspect of their proposed policy, and its impact on small publishers.

When informed that such a policy would require me to purchase 10 times my usual number of ISBNs, and that this would only last me half as long as now, the ISBN tweeter commented that the increased block would “only” cost about $1,900 (for express delivery. Standard delivery on a 1000-number block is $1,750).

I normally purchase in blocks of 100, and have budgeted for that. We normally publish about 25 titles a year in trade paperback and ebook. Hence, one block, at $995, will last two years. So my annual cost for ISBNs is about $500.

Annual cost would triple

Fictionwise, which is our main source of e-book sales, offers 11 e-book formats. Should I be required to assign a unique ISBN to each of those formats, I would need 12 for each title. I would thus need 300 ISBNs for a single year. If I continued to purchase in blocks of 100, my annual cost would thus triple, to $1,500.

Yes, I could purchase a 1000-number block, but the overall cost would be essentially the same: three years at $1,500 or three years and part of a fourth for $1,750. Either way, an essential cost of my doing business has tripled—and for no good reason.

This also assumes there won’t be new formats added as time goes on, which isn’t realistic. Unless and until everyone agrees on a single standard format, proprietary ones will be the norm.

ISBN interests’ baby: Not requested by any vendors or publishers

Costs of doing business are always with us, but this suggested policy has, so far as I can tell, not been requested by any of the vendors or publishers. It is being promoted solely by the the ISBN interests and their monopoly sales agent here in the States. They are seeking to persuade said vendors and publishers that the change would benefit them—largely, I gather, by allowing them to track sales by format.

Their other argument is that the standards require a unique ISBN for each edition of a book, and that each format is such an edition.

Clothing IDs: A comparison

It is logical to require a unique ISBN for a hardcover, trade paperback and/or mass market edition of a book. It is also logical to require a unique ISBN for the ebook version. However, requiring a unique ISBN for each format of that e-book is the same as demanding each size and color of a shirt has to have a unique product number.

Open any mail order catalog, and each product—which in this discussion is the e-book—has a single identifying number. The variations on that product, which are the equivalent of the e-book formats, are handled in the manufacturers’ and vendor’s databases using SIN or SKU numbers.

Doing it any other way would be so unwieldy as to be unworkable. Yet neither those manufacturers nor the vendor have any problem tracking inventory.

A policy in search of a need

Comparing the differing coding of the various e-book formats to the clear and substantial changes needed to render a hardcover as paperback or e-book is absurd, and shows the usual inability of established entities to adapt to the rapidly changes inherent in technology.

In other words, instead of adapting their policy to the reality of the marketplace, they are trying to impose that policy on a situation it was never intended to address.

$$$$: The ISBN interests’ motive

Of course, there’s an obvious reason for wanting to make this policy standard operating procedure: $$$$. In the three years since I purchased my first ISBN block, the price for that block has increased at least twice, and by considerable margins each time.

If publishers have to purchase enough numbers to identify a print version and a dozen e-book formats, that’s 13 numbers that will be required where previously two were sufficient. The 100-number block that now lasts me the better part of two years would suddenly barely get me through one.

The big beneficiary: Bowker

So, ask yourself who will benefit most should this “standard” become the official norm in the industry. And I will repeat that the current situation in the U.S. is that Bowker has an unchallenged monopoly on the sale and distribution of ISBNs, excluding authorized resellers.

Based on a logical analysis of the situation, it seems to me the only benefit falls on the people who control the product stream.

The restraint-of-trade question

Should this policy be accepted, an argument might be made that it would be in restraint of trade, since those unwilling to assume the expense required to comply would be effectively barred from sales channels that adopt it. Their only other option would be to limit the number of formats they make available, which would also likely result in diminished sales.

Thus, since their very survival might be in question, I think it safe to say the small independent e-book presses would be likely to consider filing a class action to that effect if such a requirement were to go into effect.

 
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