Getting your ISBN
Your book, your ISBN.
An ISBN names the publisher of record. On a self-published title, that’s you — so the ISBN must be registered to you, and it stays with your book wherever it goes.
Why you supply the ISBN
An ISBN isn’t just a barcode — in every distributor and library catalogue it records who the publisher is. When you self-publish, you publish under your own name and you are the publisher of record. So the ISBN has to be registered to you, not to Curated Word.
That’s also why we can’t hand you one of ours. Curated Word’s ISBNs are registered to Curated Word; putting one on your book would tell the world that we published it — which wouldn’t be true, and would undercut the very thing self-publishing promises: your book, your name, your rights. An ISBN you register yourself is unambiguously yours and travels with the book anywhere.
Only titles published by Curated Word — where we are the publisher of record — carry an ISBN from our block, assigned by our team. For everything you publish yourself, the ISBN is yours.
How to get one
Register with your national ISBN agency.
ISBNs are issued by an official agency in each country. You buy from the agency for the country you publish from — one ISBN per format (a separate one for ebook, paperback, and audiobook). If you plan more than one book, a small block is usually far cheaper per ISBN.
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United States
Bowker (MyIdentifiers) →The sole US ISBN agency. Buy a single ISBN or a block; blocks are far cheaper per unit if you’ll publish more than one title.
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United Kingdom & Ireland
Nielsen UK ISBN Store →The UK & Ireland agency. Sold in blocks of 1, 10, 100, or 1000.
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Australia
Thorpe-Bowker (myidentifiers.com.au) →The Australian ISBN agency. Single ISBNs and blocks available.
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Canada
Library and Archives Canada →ISBNs are issued free of charge to Canadian publishers.
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Elsewhere
International ISBN Agency — find your national agency →Every country has a designated agency. Register with the one for the country you publish from.
Step by step
- 1. Register with the agency for your country (from the list above) and buy an ISBN — one for each format you’ll release.
- 2. List yourself as the publisher when the agency asks. That’s the whole point — the ISBN records you as publisher of record.
- 3. Enter the ISBN on your book’s catalogue page in the dashboard. A self-published title needs its ISBN entered there before it can be published.
Coming: a supported option to have Curated Word obtain an ISBN on your behalf — registered in your name, so you remain the publisher of record. Until then, register your own using the guidance above.
Not sure which path you’re publishing under? See the two ways to publish.