what is an isbn and who owns it
Hereâs the bottom line: If you donât purchase your own ISBN under your own publishing company name, then you are not the publisher. If you use a publishing services company and let them assign your book an ISBN, they are the publisher, not you. Letâs backtrack a bit and talk about just what an ISBN is. An ISBN (which stands for International Standard Book Number) is to a book what your Social Security number is to you. An ISBN is your ID in the book world. This thirteen-digit numeral unmistakably identifies the title, edition, binding, and publisher of a given work.
The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation (except reprintings) of a book. For example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, and 10 digits long if assigned before 2007. The method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country.