ISBN Numbers – Free! | ANDREWKOOMAN.COM

Did you know that in Canada, ISBNs are issued for free?

I didn’t.

The Canadian ISBN Service, overseen by Library and Archives Canada, distributes ISBNs in packages of ten, and whether you’re an established publisher, a start up, or a self-publisher, you are issued your own ISBN prefix, a process I finalized last week. Now I’m rocking some serious book code.

I did a bunch of engine searching, of the web variety, to find it out. The things they should really be teaching you in school, along with budgeting, ironing, and how to change the oil in your car!

I spoke with a pleasant francophone sur la telephone. I had registered as a publisher and within a day been granted my ISBNs. I found the website to be a little obscure, and I phoned because I wanted to verify that my numbers were legitimate, that I hadn’t somehow bucked the system and got away with a freebie when I shouldn’t have (she thought this was very honest, I just thought it wise: what if, down the road I was in possession of a number that shouldn’t be my own?)

What the website lacks in information, it makes up for in the ease with which, once an account holder, you can request, acquire, and assign ISBNs to publications.

The first number in my possession that I assigned: 978-0-9865813-0-4 for the forthcoming Disappointed by Hope: Migrants and Refugees in Search of a Better Country.

The second? Why for God/he, of course: 978-0-9865813-1-1

If you’re in need of a handy bar-code (like the one pictured below) so your book can be scanned by those dandy infrared devices you’ll have to shell out some money for those, something any printer worth their weight in paper can arrange.

If you didn’t know or are searching for info about ISBNs I hope this post will help. It might save you, at very least, a phone call.