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International ISBN Agency issues position paper
February 27, 2010 | 7:20 am
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By Paul Biba
The Book Industry Study Group is reporting that the Agency has issued its position paper and reaffirmed its 2005 recomendation that ISBNs be assigned to different forms of electronic publication. This is a controversial topic, as many epublishers resent the extra expense of additional ISBNs. This expense can climb further if one considers that each version of an ebook, i.e., Epub, Mobi, html, etc. should be assigned a different ISBN.
For more information check the article here. Thanks to Resource Shelf for the tip.
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Comments:
This is a no brainer position paper. They want money. If every version requires a different ISBN, then more ISBN’s will be sold. This makes them more money.
This paper, which was issued by the International ISBN Agency who does not charge publishers for ISBNs, has nothing to do with cost and makes a sincere and accurate attempt to address the issues we are facing as a global value chain with respect to identification of e-books.
On the subject of costs, it should be noted that ISBN agencies in most countries do not charge for ISBNs. Most agencies, with the exception of Bowker, Nielsen and a few others, are operated by national libraries in countries that are government funded. Assignment and bibliographic services to render ISBNs in these countries and make titles discoverable as part of catalogues, while requiring human capital and systems to manage them, are supported by large grants and contributions, whereas in the U.S and UK, ISBN Agencies and bibliographic services are provided as part of commercial models.
In January, Bowker issued a dramatically reduced new pricing schedule for ISBNs which can be accessed at https://www.myidentifiers.com/multimedia/pdfs/MyID-Pricing-Revisions-Jan2010.pdf. Lower costs for ISBN prefix sizes of 10, 100 and 1,000 have been primarily introduced to encourage the assignment of ISBNs to digital manifestations (e.g., e-books) of book products, which provide many options for making content available to readers worldwide and are often catalogued in the same capacity as their print counterparts. The new lower pricing is designed to assist and address continuing concerns faced by authors and publishers associated with the challenging economic climate.
Bowker has also introduced additional value-add services in conjunction with ISBNs. Authors and publishers that purchase ISBNs and provision meta-data also receive a FREE web page which is search optimized and features their title information and buy-button links to retailers, encouraging discoverability and purchases online.
So, again, this paper was not designed whatsoever to enable the ISBN-IA or ISBN Agencies to “make more money.” This should be very clear. ISBN numbers enable e-book products and their varying options to be effectively and uniquely identified by publishers, wholesalers, search engines and others who are making these products available for purchase and trading.
Don’t forget that important clause: “and made separately available”. If you bundle all ebook formats for a single price, you only need one ISBN.
Paul,
The bundling of all e-book formats for a single price assumes that the bundled format, e.g., “EPUB,” is a supportable file format for all e-book reader devices, which is not yet the case today. As such, consumers (end-users) with devices that do not support a “bundled” file, but rather one specific format or another to access and utilize the product, will need to be able to distinguish the format(s) they need during their discovery and purchasing process. most e-book retailers and sources do not allow for returns once the file is provisioned.
EPUB serves a good purpose “upstream” in publishing workflows and then when publishers trade the e-book product with a wholesaler or retailer intermediary who then likely renders the individual file format downstream and possibly applies production or variable business rules, such as DRM. The downstream trading partner, in many cases, needs to distinguish the file format as a tradable asset for the end consumer. These issues are the genesis of the GRID proposal articulated in the paper.
So yes, EPUB as a bundle or “container” can and should be assigned an ISBN by the publisher. Its the devices that don’t directly support ePUB as the usable asset that cause challenges for the end user in their discovery and purchasing processes, and follow on attempts to use the product, who end up compromised. Someday, hopefully all devices will support EPUB; today they don’t. For a reliable list, visit http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions/devices/
Andy: I read Paul’s bundle to mean Baen’s or FictionWise’s “multi-format” ebooks. These consist of separate downloads for each format, but you are buying all of them at once. FictionWise does seem to use one ISBN for all of them.
Under the agency model I think publishers may get in trouble offering multiple formats of what is essentially the same ebook and charging full price for each new format. The reason they don’t produce format bundles like Baen (even though they have them in-house) is DRM – it costs money for every DRMed format that is added.
Hi Alan,
Agree and understand these issues fully with respect to DRM costs, etc. Bottom line is that without ISBNs, cataloging and discovery is compromised. On the FW homepage, I attempted to find a new title they are featuring, “Nostos The Homecoming” on other channels…
On BarnesandNoble.com, it wasn’t even found – ironic b/c they own FW. Managed to find it on Readerwise through searching Bing and site says the title is only available in one format (http://www.readerwise.com/ebooks/b105179/Nostos-The-Homecoming/Nancy-Barone-Wythe/?si=47), and was able to find it on Amazon.com as Kindle. Google doesn’t even list it as a search result at all. I would imagine this publisher will want to leverage GBS as a distribution channel, publishing the book as a Google Digital Edition. Hearts on Fire web site (publisher) says “You may purchase your e-book in either as a PDF download or a print book. All print books are in perfect (paperback) binding.” I assume if they are printing, they are offering POD, and would imagine they aren’t planning to put an ISBN on that option, which would really make things a challenge if the consumer wanted a print version…
So, irrespective of multi-format per ISBN, discovery is compromised and this was only one example. Users will search and find on many channels and make sure they are finding what they want, need and can use. They also trust certain channels for purchases.
Andy, thank you for your clarifications.