[FM Discuss] [IAEP] ISBN Numbers Summary.

[Sean DALY]

+1

a good plan.

Silly question...if we were to have smashing success and wish to
publish the Sugar Manual in half a dozen or more other languages,
would we need 5 separate numbers or would these be 5 variants on one
number?

Not that we would use up 10 numbers quickly. Just wondering.



On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 7:40 PM, David Farning <dfarning at sugarlabs.org> wrote:
> I spent a couple of hours researching of ISBNs and how they apply to FM and SL.
>
> An ISBN is the International Standard Book Number necessary for each
> book marketed to the book trade (bookstores and libraries). Bookstores
> will not order a book without an ISBN... mostly because they can't.
> Without an ISBN, there's no number for them to look up.
>
> This relates to Sugar Labs because Floss Manuals sells Sugar manuals
> on Amazon.  How cool is that?  While nobody is quiting their day jobs
> yet....  The synergy between FM and SL had great potential.
>
> The work flow currently is:
> 1.  FM/SL booksprint to create the content
> 2.  FM publishes the content.  Current they use http://www.lulu.com/
> 3.  FM makes the content more widely available via resellers such as Amazon.
>
> The ISBN is the link between steps 2 and 3.  For the geeks in the
> room, the ISBN represents a unique identifier for the book.
>
> Getting an ISBN
>
> From Lulu - The most straight forward to get an ISBN is to buy one
> directly from lulu.  The Cost is about $150/ISBN.  The problem is that
> Lulu owns the ISBN in the writers name.  You can't transfer the ISBN
> to another publisher.
>
> From ISBN Broker - The ISBN Agency has authorize about 170 different
> organizations to sell 'blocks' of ISBNs to publishers in different
> geographicial regions.
>
> In New Zealand the national library gives away blocks of ISBNs in
> exchange for a donation of 2 copies of each book to the national
> library.  Cost is the cost of printing and sending two books to New
> Zealand.
>
> In England the situation is similar.  Cost 6 is six books for various
> English libraries.
>
> In the US http://www.bowker.com/ has exclusive rights to sell blocks of ISBNS.
> Cost is about.
> 10 ISBNs        $245.00
> 100 ISBNs       $930.00
> 1,000 ISBNs     $1,570.00
>
> Recomendation:
>
> Purchase a block of ten ISBNs from bowker in the name of Floss
> manuals.  This allows us to identify FM as the publisher not lulu.
>
> Assign these ISBNs to new books as the come 'off the presses' as FM.
>
> After the first ten ISBNs are assigned, reassess the situation.
>
> If, this sounds reasonable, I'll buy the first block of ten in FM's
> name to get the ball rolling.
>
> david
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