CreateSpace will handle the distribution through the channels you choose (with some limits), and will print the books for those channels. If you use your own ISBN (as I do), you can put your own imprint on the book. (And I think Bowker's price is going up by 50% in a few weeks, though maybe that's only for batches of 1000 ISBNs.) This Custom ISBN is a ton cheaper than the Bowker price for a single ISBN. They will not distribute it to libraries and academic institutions. If you use that, CreateSpace will distribute your book to bookstores. Some bookstores frown on stocking books with the CreateSpace imprint.ĬreateSpace offers a $10 Custom ISBN, and you can use whatever name you want for the imprint. That has the disadvantage of making it obvious that your book is self-published. I put "details" in scare quotes because it is not obvious (to me, at least) what some of the terminology means.įor the free ones, you have to use CreateSpace's imprint (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform). That is, you can't use another printer to print books with an ISBN you got from CreateSpace. The key limitation is this: If your book has a CreateSpace ISBN, you must buy your copies from CreateSpace. You can use them to distribute your book anywhere in the world. (Please note that I am not American, and a lot of what I've read on the internet is very focused on options available for people in the US, which makes me even less certain of my options.)ĬreateSpace ISBNs are real, legitimate ISBNs. Is this ISBN offered by CreateSpace a real ISBN or not?Īnd this is my main question: If I go with CreateSpace's free ISBN now, and then later I the opportunity comes up (or I just decide) to make my book available through distribution channels, can I then buy a "regular" ISBN and go with that? Would I need to? That CreateSpace is offering me one for free does seem appealing. It seems that buying an ISBN elsewhere, even though I've read hints here and there that it is possible to do it for cheap or free, seems to cost around 125 US$, or the equivalent in other currencies (I've looked at Canadian and UK options). it's not really an ISBN, it's just an internal version of an ISBN that only works within Amazon's services? CreateSpace offers a "free" ISBN, and calls it an "ISBN", but says "This ISBN can only be used with the CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform." So.
I am preparing my book for print-on-demand through Amazon's CreateSpace service, and I am trying to understand the options for getting an ISBN.
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