For Indie Authors – Should you use an ISBN?

Should you buy ISBN numbers?

Amazon ebooks – you don’t need an ISBN (so if you are only producing ebooks to put on Amazon only i.e. Kindle Unlimited, you don’t need to worry about an ISBN)

Amazon Print books – you do need an ISBN, but they will give you a free one

An ISBN gives a professional look to a book – I would always recommend using them if have the budget. If not then there are ways around all of these things.

Aggregators like Smashwords will give you a free ISBN, as will D2D (but you can’t use a Smashwords ISBN on a D2D account, and vice versa). A free ISBN from these will mean that the ‘publisher’ for your book will show Smashwords or D2D etc)

NOTE

• You can only use an ISBN once.
• You don’t need an ISBN to sell in each individual country.
• You need an ISBN for every specific format of the book and any new versions. 

Links

https://self-publishingschool.com/isbn/ has loads of useful information

Buy ISBN’s here

• In the UK – https://www.nielsentitleeditor.com/titleeditor/
• In the US – http://www.isbn.org
• Other ISBN agencies can be found here: https://www.isbn-international.org/agencies