ISBNs and the self-publisher Part I: the ISBN system

(This is modified text from The Global Indie Author.) The ISBN System ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number. The rules and regulations governing the use and distribution of ISBNs are determined by the International ISBN Agency, based in London. The international agency allots ISBNs to national agencies, who in turn allot them to their publishers; thus, a publisher cannot acquire an ISBN from a foreign national agency: a British publisher, for example, cannot buy an ISBN from the American ISBN agency and vice versa. Publishers then assign their ISBNs Read More …

A small act of paying it forward

In the process of converting my novel’s Word doc to the Kindle format, I ran into troubles when, although I had formatted my document exactly as instructed, the ebook wasn’t working properly when previewed on Kindle’s Previewer. After struggling for two days, trying everything I could imagine and getting nowhere, I went onto the Kindle community forum. Within two days I received the help I needed and got my book finished and up on Amazon’s Kindle site. (Turned out the Kindle Previewer doesn’t actually contain all Kindle functions, so you Read More …

Why I chose to self-publish

The first thing you learn as a writer is that writing is the easy part; getting published is the long slog. When Amazon embraced ebook technology and opened their format to self-publishers, ebooks exploded into popular culture, taking the publishing world by storm — and many by surprise — with its rapid growth. New writers see in the ebook format a way to bypass the gatekeepers and build their own audience; established publishers see a new revenue stream with minuscule manufacturing costs. But the decision to self-publish shouldn’t be a Read More …