Amazon worth getting an ISBN for

[Solly Brown]

I'm toying with the idea of getting an Isbn from Lulu so that I can sell Dog Town: Core Rules on Amazon.

They offer the basic at $34.95 and a plus version at $179.

Which do I need ?

Has selling on Amazon been good for anyone?  

Jonathan Ridd
www.coldbloodedgames.com
Dog Town: Pure Punk Roleplaying

[Paul Czege]

Interesting. Details on the two Lulu ISBN services here:

http://www.lulu.com/services/isbn.php

So, for $34.95 they're effectively selling you a single ISBN. My understanding is that it's not possible to buy and register single ISBNs. So Lulu must be registering them in bulk to some genericized publisher name. Now I'm quite curious. Do you know of any books which got their ISBNs via Lulu that we could look up in Books In Print?

Paul

[jdagna]

For my games, Amazon sales have mostly been to people who already knew about the game and preferred to order there (they offer free shipping, a return policy, more shipping options, a more trusted name, and people have been listing used copies there).  The question in mind is whether those people would have bought anyway if the book hadn't been on Amazon, and that's the $16 question (Amazon's cut on my core book).

I'm not sure if the prices for ISBN numbers have gone up, but I got a block of 10 for only $220, so I'd say getting your own is going to be better than the Lulu Plus program, especially if you plan to publish more titles.  This is especially true since Ingram mostly sells traditional books.  Gaming stores won't be ordering through them and the people who do won't be interested in a gaming book.  (Frankly, no one is interested in a book they've never heard of, so if you don't have an ad campaign to back up the listings, I don't think they'll help you much.)

[MisterPoppet]

Actually, they've had long discussions on Lulu about the issue of ISBN's and what not. It comes down to this...

It the true terms of it all, Lulu is not a publisher. They provide tools for publishers. Getting an ISBN is not necessary for selling a book, but it is for getting your book out into the big market (amazon and whatnot). The difference between the Basic ISBN and the ISBN Plus, is that Lulu will get your book into places like amazon.com and B&N.com. Either one you get, gets you into Books in Print. Yes, it is correct that Lulu buys the ISBN's in bulk and then sells them to the authors. For official and legal use, any ISBN you get though Lulu will mark the publisher as Lulu.

All authors who get an ISBN get into Book In Print. In fact, the current top selling book (How To Start a Wedding Planning Business) has an ISBN of 1-4116-0043-6. Look it up if you will.

-MisterPoppet-

[Paul Czege]

Very good. Books In Print lists the book like this:

Title: How to Start a Wedding Planning Business  
Author: Cho Phillips, Sherrie Wilkolaski  
Publication Date: January 2003  
Publisher: Lulu.com
 
Country of Publication: United States  
Market: United States  
ISBN: 1-4116-0043-6  
Item Status: Active Record (Available for Order)  
Binding Format: Trade Paper  
Pages: 449  
Price: $59.95(USD) Retail (Publisher)
 
Available Through: Alibris;Bertrams The Book Wholesaler;Gardners Books Limited;Ingram Book Company  
Language: English  
Audience: General Adult  
Bowker Subjects: WEDDINGS_PLANNING
 
General Subjects (BISAC): REFERENCE / Weddings
 
General Subjects (BIC): WEDDINGS
 
Physical Dimensions (W x L x H): 6 x 9 in.  
Synopsis/Annotation: A comprehensive course covering wedding etiquette, coordination, directing as well as the business side of wedding planning. "What the other courses fail to tell you." Topics such as how to stay in business and how to avoid the most common mistakes.

Paul

[Keith Senkowski]

Conspiracy of Shadows has an ISBN via Lulu.  Like Paul showed, the publisher is listed as Lulu.com.  Oh and it tends to appear in a lot more places than Amazon or BN.com.  I think over all, without looking at the numbers, I've had about 15 sales via these more mainstream locations.

Keith

[Roger]

I found this thread really confusing (huh?  People selling ISBNs?), so I did a bit of research...

Aha!  ISBNs are issued free to Canadians.  That is to say, free to publishers with a Canadian address.

<http://www.lac-bac.gc.ca/isbn/s11-201-e.html>

This may or may not be actually helpful to the publishers in this forum, but I found it interesting.


Cheers,
Roger

[Bardsandsages]

The ISBN plus is definately a time saver.  My first fiction book appeared on Amazon, B&N, Booksamillion, and dozens of other online stores with the cover and description without me having to do anything.  What that saved me in time alone was worth the cost.  And remember, if you have just the basic ISBN and want to sell to bookstores, you have to supply the books out of pocket.  With ISBN Plus, it's all handled through the distributor Ingram and you don't have to tie up any of your own money.  Most  major bookstores use Ingram, as it's one of the major distributors.

[Eero Tuovinen]

Aha!  ISBNs are issued free to Canadians.  That is to say, free to publishers with a Canadian address.

That's the typical situation outside US. Joys of private monopolism, I guess. For me, getting an ISBN is a matter of course. Libraries, book shops and other mainstream retailers like them, and they're free in Finland. So really, no question. The most work-intensive part was making the bar-code out of the ISBN, getting the number was just a matter of a couple of e-mails.

[viktor_haag]

Aha!  ISBNs are issued free to Canadians.  That is to say, free to publishers with a Canadian address.

That's the typical situation outside US. Joys of private monopolism, I guess. For me, getting an ISBN is a matter of course. Libraries, book shops and other mainstream retailers like them, and they're free in Finland. So really, no question. The most work-intensive part was making the bar-code out of the ISBN, getting the number was just a matter of a couple of e-mails.

So, in the case of (some) non-US publishers, Lulu's program is really paying them a small fee to be the publisher/distributor of the book? I take it that, if I lived in Finland (or Canada) and got my free ISBN, I would still have leg work to do in order to get my book advertised on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc. etc.?

I apologize for these perhaps naive questions; I am a newbie to this whole indie-publishing notion...


--
Viktor

[Keith Senkowski]

Viktor,

I would contact Lulu and find out.  They might give a price break since they don't have to supply the ISBN.

Keith

[daMoose_Neo]

Quick question...
What are the requirements to be a "Canadian publisher"?  
Technically speaking, Neo (my company) has a "Canadian Office" in that one of us lives in Mission, BC. Free ISBN's would be nice...

[Brendan]

Intuitively, Nate, I would say that being a "Canadian publisher" means "publisher that pays Canadian taxes."

[MisterPoppet]

Sorry, Viktor. Lulu can't distribute your book with your ISBN like they can with their ISBN. There's some sort of legality problem they run into when distributing books that don't have an ISBN from them. It's some publisher issue with Ingram.

-Mister Poppet-