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How to get an ISBN for self-published books in Australia

How to get an ISBN for self-published books in Australia

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The term ISBN is a common one within the book industry, but what is an ISBN, why is it important for your book, and most importantly how to you get one for your book? ISBNs are on books all around the world, but there are specific companies that supply these to their own regions, and they’re not the only acronym important to the publishing world.

Contents

1. What are the basics of an ISBN?
2. Does my book need an ISBN?
3. How do I get an ISBN in Australia?
4. The lesser-known publication numbers

1. What are the basics of an ISBN?

An International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a 10- or 13-digit number unique to every book published in the market. You can find the ISBN of a book on the book’s artwork (often on the back cover) accompanied by a barcode and often the genre. ISBNs are an integral part of a book as they make the book searchable within a catalogue and allows libraries and bookstores access to the important metadata of a book.

This metadata includes but is not limited to:

    • Title
    • Subtitle
    • Author name
    • Other contributors (e.g. editor, illustrator, photographer, etc.)
    • Publisher
    • Format
    • Cover image
    • Genre
    • Subgenre
    • date of publication
    • Status of the book (whether it is available or not for bookstores to stock, etc.)
    • The RRP (recommended retail price)

If a book has more than one edition or variation, a new ISBN is assigned to each. This is because, as we’ve said, the ISBN holds information. Because new editions and variations of a book can include changes in a book’s information (new date of publication, cover image, contributors, etc.), they require a new ISBN to be distinguishable in a catalogue.

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ISBN example

​2. Does my book need an ISBN?

ISBNs are required for all books intended for the market, whether you intend to sell your book globally or locally. Without an ISBN, your book will not be searchable on databases and will not be accepted by wholesalers, distributors, and retailers, meaning that they will not be able to find or stock your book. Some retailers even require your book to have an ISBN, meaning they will not stock your book without one.

You will need to purchase a new ISBN for every book you publish, regardless of how similar they are or if they are or if you’ve published the same book in two different editions (updated content, new cover, etc.). If you have one book that is published in multiple formats, such as paperback, hardcover, eBook, and audiobook, you still need to have a new ISBN for each format.

ISBNs also help to differentiate books with similar or the same titles, which does happen quite a bit in publishing. They can work to elevate the credibility and authority of your book, too, giving potential readers more confidence in your book.

2.1 Printing your book with a SKU instead of an ISBN

A SKU is a ‘Stock Keeping Unit’ unique to each product within a company. They’re used to track inventory, sales and restocking. In book printing, you can get a SKU from your printing company by simply requesting one. SKUs are useful mainly for authors who don’t want to distribute their book and therefore don’t need the benefits of an ISBN.

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​3. How do I get an ISBN in Australia?

The process for getting an ISBN assigned to your book can vary from country to country. In Australia, there is one main company that handles the distribution of ISBNs, and that is Thorpe-Bowker.

You can apply for an ISBN through their website, and you can either get individual ISBNs or you could bulk-purchase. The benefit of bulk-purchasing ISBNs is similar to any bulk-purchasing endeavour: you get more for less. This is only beneficial, however, for authors or publishers who know they are going to use them all. If you only want to publish one or two books, you’re better off just purchasing a singular ISBN when you require one.

If you’re publishing through self-publishing platforms such as Amazon KDP or IngramSpark, you can purchase your ISBN through them as well. (Amazon KDP allows their authors to get ISBNs for free, but you are of course limited to distribution through Amazon exclusively.)

Thorpe-Bowker Homepage

​3.1 Getting a barcode for your ISBN

Barcodes are also essential for the distribution and sale of books. For books, they are a graphical representation of the ISBN. You will need to purchase your barcode for your book after you’ve assigned your book an ISBN, both of which can be done through Thorpe-Bowker.

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EAN Barcode for an ISBN example

4. The lesser-known publication numbers

4.1 ISSN

An ISSN stands for ‘International Standard Serial Number’. It is an 8-digit code (ISSN 0387-8772, for example) and is used as a categorisation system exclusively for publication-types including:

    • Course textbooks
    • Newspapers
    • Annual publications (such as directories, reports, lists, etc.)
    • Magazines
    • Journals
    • Collections

4.1.1 Why do periodical publications not use ISBNs?

Having separate numbering systems for different types of publication help to maintain control, flexibility, and overall clarity for those who use them to catalogue and find particular titles. Having a different numbering system is useful when considering the following:

    • Keep track of and differentiate editions and issues of periodicals.
    • Help maintain and track subscriptions to the publications.

4.1.2 Who needs an ISSN and why?

Any author of a periodical publication needs an ISSN in order to be recognised globally as a legitimate publication. They also protect your intellectual property rights by assigning the publication to your or your business through the use of metadata.

4.2. ISMN

An ISMN is a 12-digit International Standard Music Number. It serves as an identifier for notated music publications much like an International Standard Book Number (ISBN) does for general books. ISMNs are assigned to both printed and digitally accessible editions music publications that are available for purchase, rental, or distribution worldwide. ISMNs are widely recognised by music industry professionals, including the following:

    • Composers: ISMNs help composers keep track of royalty payments and music ownership.
    • Music Publishers: ISMNs help manage the supply chain and tracking of products. They also help with automated workflows, data management, visibility, enhanced communication, and streamlining payable accounts.
    • Rights Organisations: ISMNs are useful to simplify the title registration process, tracking music usage, transparency with any copyright issues, and streamlining royalty payments.
    • Music Traders: An ISMN helps to create a smooth and efficient ordering system, a transparent and accessible selling process, and an online information exchange.
    • Libraries: An ISMN simplifies the legal deposit process and the inclusion of music publications in library catalogues.

4.2.1 Why do music publications not use ISBNs?

Although it’s technically possible to use an ISBN for music publications, there are a number of reasons why this is limiting:

    • ISMNs make it easier to filter and identify music publications among thousands of other publications.
    • The music industry’s organisational structure is different to the book sector, with unique supply and distribution channels.
    • Some ISBN agencies lack expertise with music publications and in this case may not list them.
    • Hiring music is not applicable to book distributors.

4.2.2 Who needs an ISMN and why?

An ISMN is necessary for anyone who intends to publish any kind of music. This is inclusive of those wishing to publish any of the following (please note: this is not a comprehensive list):

    • Scores (full, short, miniature, vocal, etc.).
    • Sets of parts or individual.
    • Song books and anthologies.
    • Recordings of parts.
    • Braille music publication.
    • Electronic publications of music.
    • Any other item integral to the published work (lyrics, etc.).

The ISMN serves as an efficient organisational tool for the production distribution, sale, and lending of music publication, adding value to the music industry chain. For Australian music publishers, there are several advantages of having an ISNM, as they:

    • increase internet exposure of your publications;
    • remove uncertainty about different versions of publications;
    • can list your contact details on the International Music Publishers Directory; and
    • keep track of stock and record barcode numbering.

4.2.3 How can I get an ISMN?

The national agency in your country can supply a ISMN number for your publication. The cost varies via agency. In Australia the ISMN service Is managed by the National Library of Australia on behalf of the International ISMN Agency which is located in Berlin. This operates as a free service in the music publishing industry. In Australia obtaining an ISMN is free.

To obtain an ISMN you need to register with the Australian ISMN Agency, from there a list of ISMNs will be sent to you. You can also assign the numbers from the list to your publications

4.2.4 Other codes used in conjunction of the ISMN

    • International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI): identifies a person, the creator. Run by
    • International Standard Musical Work Code (ISWC): identifies a musical work. Run by ISWC Network.
    • International Standard Recording Code (ISRC): identifies sound recordings. Run by the International ISRC Agency.
    • International Standard Audiovisual Number (ISAN): identifies an audio-visual work. Run by Transitory Registration Agency.

4.3 Do ISMNs, ISSNs, and ISBNs have the same function?

ISMNs, ISSNs and ISBNs are each numbering systems for publications in their own right, but they do have some differences. ISBNs are International Book Standard Numbers identifying all general text-based publications, while ISMNs are International Music Numbers that identify notated music publications specifically, and ISSNs are International Standard Serial Numbers for periodical publications like coursebooks and newspapers. Furthermore, ISNMs, ISSNs, and ISBNs have different supply and distribution chains, global markets, directories, and ordering processes.

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Why are there unexpected hyphens in my book?

Why are there unexpected hyphens in my book?

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Justification and hyphenation in book publishing is a big and somewhat technical topic. But here I’ll try to give you a 5 minute ‘crash-course’ using some images as an aid to understanding.

Hyphens are used often in writing, and while most authors are aware of their use in joining whole or partial words together, there is another common use for hyphenations in publications. This blog post aims to give some simple technical information about hyphenation so writers who aspire to become successfully published authors can understand the process. It is important to make this point—albeit a generalisation—right up-front: a book without hyphenation is a sub-professional book.

Contents

1. Hyphenation – The basics
2. Justified text combined with hyphenation

1. The hyphenation basics

When we say “unexpected hyphenation”, we’re not talking about hyphens that are used to connect whole or part-words (like the one in “part-words”). These hyphens are common enough that almost everyone has come to expect them.

The instances where hyphenation can be unexpected for some authors are the ones that appear in a word that is not usually hyphenated where sentences break over to the next line. This type of hyphenation is not input by editors or authors, rather they appear during the design phase when the book is being laid out by the designers.

So, why is your book designer putting random hyphens in the middle of your words? Well, to start with, this is usually an automatic process handled by the design software. The designer themselves isn’t manually placing a hundred hyphens in the middle of your words for fun. But, the reason for the hyphens is that it is a standard technique for typesetting. and actually helps the readability of your book.

With that explained, the two uses for hyphens are as follows:

  • As a punctuation mark used to join two or more words and to separate syllables of a single word. For example son in law is an error but son-in-law is a correctly hyphenated word phrase.
  • As a method of increasing the readability of large amounts of text. This is especially true for when the text is ‘justified’.

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2. Justified text combined with hyphenation

Why is text commonly ‘justified’ in professional book publishing?

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable, and appealing when displayed. It involves choosing the font, colour, size, spacing, and layout of texts to deliver a clear message to the reader.

One key aspect of typography to consider in book publishing is justification. Justification refers to the alignment of text along a straight edge. In this instance, justified centred text creates a symmetrical and eye-catching layout and is commonly used in book design. Justified text is aligned along both the left and right margins and creates a clean, uniform look. It is commonly used in books and magazines as it helps to maximize space on a page and improve readability.

How justification affects readability is best shown graphically. Please note the examples shown below are exaggerated for demonstration purposes.

This format isn’t too bad but with large amounts of text it would look quite poor. The red line shows that the right part of the text area is ‘ragged’. With a large amount of text this looks messy and makes the page harder to read.

To correct this messiness a professional book typographer will deploy justification. The next image shows just how that might look. Does it look better? For me that’s an unequivocal ‘no’.  While the right side is nicely straight, the justified text now has very ugly spaces between the words. The red lines emphasise this effect.

Justified text in typography

The solution to this issue is to use justification along with hyphenation. Hyphenation will appropriately break words to even out the gaps between words. This is illustrated in the image below.

Justified and hyphenated text in book publishing

Note, here the typographer has made a conscious decision to set both the hyphens i.e. the ‘-‘, and the full-stop i.e. the ‘.’, inside the red line on the right where the letters end. Does this re-introduce the very ‘messy’ justification and hyphenation we were trying to eliminate? No, the science affirms this is a very powerful typographic technique to improve the readability of large blocks of text. The reader will not actually mentally register the hyphens inside the red line.

Typography for book publishing - justifiction

To some authors professional typesetting using justification and hyphens has introduced something into their manuscript that was not there in the first place. But every professional book publisher and book designer knows (notwithstanding some rare technical exceptions), text that does not use hyphens screams ‘I’m an amateur author’.

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The Little Book of Big Publishing tips goes into the essentials of self-publishing a book, outlining the business and financial side of publishing, legal issues, design, editing, sales and marketing. There's even a section on how to identify a vanity-publishing scam.

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The step-by-step of self-publishing

The step-by-step of self-publishing

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Whether your book is an exciting fantasy novel, an informative historical recount, a childrens picture book, or otherwise, there are certain steps that all authors looking to self-publish go through to turn their idea into a real book that out in the market and ready for readers.

Contents

1. Step one: Write your manuscript
2. Step two: Build your marketing strategy
3. Step three: Review your content
4. Step four: Get your manuscript edited
5. Step five: Approach your chosen self-publishers
6. Step six: Design your book
7. Step seven: Print your book
8. Step eight: Get your book out into the world
9. Step nine: Implement your marketing strategy
10. Step ten: Keep putting in the work

 

Step one: Write your manuscript

The first no-brainer step to getting your book self-published is to, of course, write your book. Writing comes easily to some, but others can struggle to find the time or motivation to sit down and get it done. Thankfully, there are a number of strategies for those authors who fit the latter. Following these steps will get you started: 

  • Identify what you want to write about. 
  • Research your genre, or anything that supports your writing. 
  • Outline the manuscript (structured plot outline) 
  • Plan characters etc. 
  • Start writing 

You can utilise online plotting tools and writing programs other than Microsoft Word to help you. 

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Step two: Build your marketing strategy

It might seem too early to be thinking about marketing when you don’t even have the physical book in your hand, but starting to build out your marketing strategy early on is a great idea. Things to think about at this stage include:

  • Your goal for publishing: Narrowing down your reason for publishing is paramount to figuring out how you’ll market your book.
  • Your target audience: Does your manuscript as it currently is fit that audience?
  • Similar books already in the market: Collect some inspiration to help you later on.
  • Your “unique” factor: You can use the unique factor of your book for your marketing strategy to pique readers interest.

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Step three: Review your content

Before you start approaching editors and self-publishers for quotes on their services, it’s always best to refine your manuscript yourself.

Some strategies for self-reviewing your content are:

  • Setting your work aside for a month or more: This will help to distance your mind from your work so you can come back to it with fresh eyes.
  • Let someone else read your book: Whether it is a friend, family member, colleague, or professional beta reader, having someone else read through your content is a great way to get some feedback from someone who doesn’t know your content like you do.
  • Print it out or get your computer to read it out loud: Seeing your manuscript off the screen or listening to it being read out loud can help you pin-point any typos or confusing sections that are more easily missed on screen.

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Step four: Get your manuscript edited

Some author don’t believe in or may be disillusioned to the idea of editing. This can be because they are scared of someone taking their authorial voice away or being overly critical of their work. Editing, however, is about helping your voice and message come across to the reader in the best way possible and will help inform you on both the parts that are well-written and the parts that require work. There are a few different types of editing, including:

To read more about the benefits of having your manuscript edited, check out our blog on editing.

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Step five: Decide your self-publishing route

There are a lot of options out there for authors wanting to self-publish. These include:

  • DIY self-publishing: Companies such as Amazon KDP and IngramSpark are the biggest DIY self-publishers for the western world.
  • Assisted self-publishing: These businesses guide you through the publishing process and assist you with services such as editing, cover design, typesetting, print brokering, distribution, and marketing. Not all assisted self-publishers do everything and some outsource certain services to trusted partners. When considering which assisted self-publisher to approach, always check online for third-party reviews to filter out the scam companies.
  • Hybrid self-publishing: Some publishing houses do a combination of self-publishing and traditional publishing. They aren’t the most common type but can be worth looking into. Like assisted self-publishers, hybrid publishers can assist you with publishing services like editing, cover design, typesetting, print brokering, distribution, and marketing.

Depending on which type of self-publishing route you take, you then need to think about book design.

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Step six: Design your book

Book cover

Your book cover needs to look professional and stand up to the market standard. It is much more difficult to market and sell a book that looks amateurish and poorly made, no matter how good your content is. The best way to make sure you get a great product is to hire a book cover designer. Whether this is through an assisted or hybrid self-publisher or a contract with a freelance book designer is up to you.

If you’re set on doing your book cover design yourself, it’s best to equip yourself with the software and knowledge you need to do a great job. The industry standard software is the Adobe suite (products like Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe Photoshop). Be careful doing your design on free online software as you need to be sure that your fonts and images aren’t in breach of copyright.

Book typesetting

Book design isn’t just about the cover. While this is a very important aspect of your book, the interior of your book is also just as important. Typesetting is a complex craft that will affect the readability of your book. If done well, your book will look professional and the experience of reading your content will be smoother and more enjoyable. On the other hand, if your typesetting is not done to industry standards, your book will come across as less-than-professional and your readers will have a more difficult time trying to immerse themselves in your content.

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Step seven: Print your book

Print-on-demand 

As a self-published author, making sure your book is available via a Print-on-Demand (POD) printer is vital. This is because POD printers have connections to the international distribution circle, meaning your book can be available on retailers such as Amazon, Booktopia, Dymocks online and more (depending on which POD printer you choose, of course). With POD, the retailer will notify the printer when an order is made via an online retailer, then the printer will print and post the book to the customer. 

The POD printers you can choose from in Australia so far are Amazon KDP and IngramSpark. 

Offset print 

Offset printing is a popular choice for book production, however this method is reserved for large, high-quality, full-colour print orders. Otherwise, it is too expensive to sustain for the majority of authors. 

Step eight: Get your book out into the world

Distribution of your book can look like many things. You can distribute through online retailers, through physical bookstores, with the library system, and even on your own dedicated author website.

Online retailer distribution

This is the most common route of distribution that self-published authors take. You can publish online via many different retailers, including Amazon, Booktopia, and many more. Doing so will help make your book available to the global market.

Physical bookstore distribution

Bookstore distribution can help your book stand out to readers as there is less competition than there is on online book retailers. However, getting your book into a bookstore can be difficult for self-published authors and usually requires registration through services like TitlePage which make your book searchable on ordering catalogues. The other way to get your book into bookstores is to visit them personally with a copy of your book and enquire about keeping your books on consignment.

Library distribution

The library will often be happy to have one or more copies of your book for circulation within their system. While this may seem like a loss as readers can now access your work for free, libraries pay royalties to the author while their book is in their system. This is true for print, eBook, and audiobook lending.

Author website distribution

Self-selling your book through your own author website is a great way to cut out the middle-man and make more from your sales. You can connect your socials to your website and direct people to your very own bookstore dedicated to your book/s.

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Step nine: Implement your marketing strategy

As mentioned previously, having a strong and ready marketing strategy is key to your book’s success. As a self-published author, it is your job to put the time and effort into getting your book out there and increasing your readership. 

Utilising social media will work in your favour, too. Don’t be scared to post about your book all the time. The more you post, the more people will see and recognise your book! It’s all about becoming known and building your author brand. 

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Step ten: Keep putting in the work

Being a published author doesn’t end after the book is produced and printed. It doesn’t even end after first round of marketing is done. In order to make sure your book is doing as well as it can in the market and reaching your target audience, you as the author have to be willing to put in continual work.

This isn’t to say that you need to quit your day-job and dedicate yourself wholly to your author brand and book. But consistent marketing on your socials, updating your author website with new content, and hosting events like book tours and signings every so often are great ways to keep your name and your book relevant in the market. Author who dedicate some of their time to their book’s success fare better in achieving their publishing goals than those who leave their book to fend for itself.

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Interested in publishing your book but unsure where to start or what is even involved? Tell us about your project and we will post you a copy of our:

 

The Little Book of
Big Publishing Tips.

 

In just a quick 8,000 words, this little book will equip you with the knowledge you need to successfully publish your book.

The Little Book of Big Publishing tips goes into the essentials of self-publishing a book, outlining the business and financial side of publishing, legal issues, design, editing, sales and marketing. There's even a section on how to identify a vanity-publishing scam.

submit your project details