When you’re about to publish and market your book, it is important to understand the industry, how it works, and ensure you’re spending your budget effectively.
Our goal at ISBNforBooks.com is to make it simple and cheap to obtain your ISBN so you can focus on everything else – we’re here to serve you. Getting your ISBN takes only a couple minutes, and costs $49-$89 per ISBN barcode, you can purchase on our Services page here. Compare this to competitors like Bowker, who charges $125 for code and an additional $25 for a barcode, which is unnecessarily expensive.
There are a lot of misunderstandings and wrong information about the industry on the web, so lets clear up some of that first.
The ISBN market is a unique one. It is run by a for-profit company called Bowker, which is owned by the Cambridge Information Group. Bowker began charging for ISBNs in the United States in 1968, after the introduction of the ISBN system in 1967. Initially, the ISBNs were provided for free, but as the system became more formalized and the demand increased, Bowker started to charge for the service to cover administrative costs. Fast forward to today and it has a monopoly on the ISBN market, where it simply issues ISBNs and barcodes.
However, the prices are extortionate. For example, for 1 ISBN on their website they charge $125 for the ISBN, and if you want a barcode, they charge another $25. A barcode is simply a digital representation of the ISBN and can be generated online for free at any barcode generator site in seconds. They charge these high fees due to the common belief that you must buy from Bowker, which is not true and is misinformation.
While Bowker has been around the longest, they aren’t the best place to buy ISBNs or barcodes. You can buy exact same product from ISBNforBooks.com for a fraction of the cost, often 70% less than the cost of Bowker, and we include high resolution barcodes of various formats entirely for free with each order. We are able to offer much lower costs due to the volume we sell, the system we’ve built which is more efficient, and the expertise in the industry. There is no reason you’d should be paying $125 + $25 for a barcode which you buy the same product for half the price.
The ISBNs we sell will work globally and satisfy all of the requirements for marketing and keeping inventory of your book at retailers, libraries, and bookstores worldwide.
When you buy from us, you can use your extra cash to market your book and not waste it on extortionate pricing from Bowker. Contrary to what you may read at various sites online, our ISBNs will work exactly as the ones from Bowker without issue – we guarantee it, or money back. You receive your ISBN assignment, along with the barcode immediately at checkout, ready to use immediately.
We’re also here to help along the journey – if you have any questions or run into any issues, we’re here to help at anytime, just contact us.