Monthly Archives: March 2015

What a busy weeks, but totally educational and oh_well_exactly_what_I_ dreamed_needed_to_do_right_now things! To be shorter: ISBN, ABI, P.O. Box, SAN, EAN barcode, PCN, CIP data, copyright, decided on a discount schedule and terms, planed on future titles, submitted RFQs + very interesting experience with printing houses as I really hoped! ;o)

Well, I know that I have the followers working on self-publishing too and some who want to try, so bellow is more details and the helpful links:

• ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number. Each version of material needs a unique ISBN. That means you’ll need a separate for the hardcover, softcover, audio, video and e-book versions of the book. You can’t buy just one ISBN, but can order a block of  10, 100, or 1000+ from Bowker. Also, keep in mind that the owner of the ISBN number is the publisher-or-record for the book-so even if you could find another publisher willing to sell you a single ISBN number, that would identify heir publishing house—not—yours—as the publisher of the book (they would then receive the orders, the returns, the checks—you get the idea. If you give or sell one of your ISBN numbers to someone else, you are the publisher of record if they are sued for copyright violation, libel, etc.) This is not the place to cut corners; buy your own ISBNs. Since you need a different ISBN for each version of the work, you’ll need more ISBNs than you may think…
• ABI is R.R. Bowker’s Advace Book Information form. All books announced via ABI are listed in Bowker’s Books in Print. Since Books in Print is used heavily by many in the book industry, it is definitely worthwhile to fill out an ABI. There’s no charge for the ABI service once you have ISBN numbers.
• Rent P.O. Box takes about 5-10 min to fill in the application, but usually here is a waiting list to take the smallest size box (size 1 – $80 per year; size 2 – $129, and so on)
• SAN stands for Standard Address Number, and identifies the different mailing addresses of multi-location companies. Unless your publishing house has multiple addresses for billing and shipping, you can safely skip this step. A SAN costs $150 and can be purchased from Bowker.
• Once you have ISBN, title and price, you can get a barcode. The barcode specific for books is called the “Bookland EAN with price code extension” (you can see my on Spring cover above). EAN stands for European Article Number, and is international product code standard. The barcode costs between $10 and $30 and is available from variety of vendors like Barcode Graphics for example. Sure, you can buy barcode direct from Browker for $25.
• PCN stands for Preassigned Card Number. You can apply for a PCN through the Library of Congress’s PCN program. It’s free and it’s an important part of the CIP block.
• CIP stands for Cataloging in Publication data. This information typically found on the verso of the title page of a book (the copyright page). Librarians use this information when entering the book into their online catalogs. You can apply for a CIP through the Library of Congress’s CIP program. Or hire someone who will help you with CIP block. I found this great CIP service and so glad I did!
• And last thing (I hope!) in this routine is copyright. I still need to check it out.

To find more information about the whole process, I highly recommend The Publishing Game: Publish a Book in 30 days by Fern Reiss.

Also, I worked with printers and got really great experience and discovered a lot interesting things like described in this dictionary ;o) I’ve got quotes from 4 printing houses already, and still wait for 3 more …and the Spring and Summer books will be send to print! I’ll post about my experience with RFQs and printing houses next week.

And last, we have the Fall and Winter covers already! Unfortunately Windows Life Writer makes the pictures grey and I am not sure how to fix that… yeah.

a Wonderful and lovely week to you all!