What Free ISBN for Book Actually Costs You

An International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a special number that allows your book to be sold in bookstores, libraries, and online retailers (Ahmad, 2008; Dagienė, 2024; Griffiths, 2015). Without cost to academic authors and independent publishers, there are a number of ways to obtain ISBNs (Kauffmann & Cambon-Thomsen, 2008; Kovač et al., 2019). This Guide takes you through each legitimate way to acquire a free ISBN for your book, contrasts those with the actual process of purchasing your book's ISBN, and discusses the consequences of both publishing and bibliographic so that your decision is based on informed scholarly and professional judgment not guess work.

Is a Free ISBN Really Free? What Every Author Should Know First

Before you get a book with a free ISBN, it's important to recognize that many first-time authors find that there are strings attached to even a free ISBN, if there is no price attached to it. If the platform provides the ISBN for free, usually it registers as the "publisher of record" in the Bowker's Books in Print or other global bibliographic databases. The official publisher for your book may appear as an imprint (a nickname) provided by the publishing platform that you select, not necessarily the official book publisher or your own book imprint. The free ISBN is also often coupled with the platform it is issued by, so an ISBN you get from one distributor usually cannot switch to the other if you want to expand your book's distribution later on. All this makes a free ISBN not a bad option. A free ISBN is a perfectly reasonable means of fast and cheap publishing especially for the independent and academic author who is testing a manuscript for a wider print-run. It's all about going with full knowledge of what you're and are not getting, and clearly the sections below will boggle you down.

How to Get a Free ISBN Through Self-Publishing Platforms

Most of the authors today get free ISBNs for their book from one of the big major self-publishing and print-on-demand platforms.

Amazon KDP

Authors publishing paperback and hardcover books on Kindle Direct Publishing receive a free ISBN from Kindle Direct Publishing. An eBook published by the publisher of record with an ISBN issued by KDP will always show up in industry metadata with the title of the “Publisher: Independently Published” and the ISBN can only be used to publish through Amazon and its partners. It cannot subsequently be transferred to another printer or distributor, so authors who may want to have other book distribution such as through bookstore or library channels should take into consideration this limitation before going for the freebie.

IngramSpark

Formed by IngramSpark, this free ISBN program provides authors in the United States with an ISBN number but not under their name (as the imprint Ingramspark gets the name instead). Some authors take the distinction between the aspects of ISBN ownership to the extreme, buying their own ISBN to avoid giving the POD/distribution network applied by many independent bookstores and academic libraries jurisdiction over the imprint identities of their titles; for lower-stakes or one-run projects some authors find it easier to take the free ISBN.

Draft2Digital and Ebook-Focused Distributors

Those authors producing mainly in ebook format can also get a free ISBN through ebook aggregators like Draft2Digital, who distributes to Apple Books, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble Press. Like the above platforms, the free number is also associated with that platform and an ebook which is later moved to print or to a different distributor would normally have a different identifier.

How to Get a Free ISBN From Your Country's National ISBN Agency  

Outside the United States, the situation is quite different elsewhere in the world, many national governments consider the assignment of ISBNs in their countries as a public service and not a product selling entity. The location where you reside will most of the times affect the accessibility of a completely free ISBN for your book, meaning that nothing is coming at any price.

United States

Bowker is the only official ISBN agency in the United States for which the number is available free of charge for authors. One ISBN now costs $125 on Bowker's MyIdentifiers site, and bulk ISBNs are offered if authors will be putting out multiple titles or formats. That is why the free ISBN programs through KDP and IngramSpark are the de facto way for budget-minded American writers to get their books published, despite the limitations mentioned above, when it comes to using their own publishers.

Canada

The unique situation of Canadian authors is that Library and Archives Canada assigns ISBN numbers free to all Canadian authors and to any publishers, through whatever platform and book printers are used to market the books. This is unique in Canada and one of the few countries where an author can get an ISO compliant ISBN, that the author owns, the book is free and has no restrictions.

India

The same is the case with India where there is an agency known as Raja Rammohun Roy National Agency for ISBN under the supervision of the Indian Ministry of Education. Authors, publishers, and academic institutions enrol in the agency's website, where they are issued their ISBNs at no cost to them, much appreciated by university presses, conference publications, as well as many independent scholarly presses throughout the country.

United Kingdom and Australia

Instead, in the United Kingdom and Australia, authors should be prepared to pay for their ISBN. For example, in the UK, ISBN registration is carried out by Nielsen at the rate of about £89 per ISBN, and Thorpe-Bowker charges about $40 per ISBN in Australia. Authors from these countries who wish for a truly free option will typically require using one of the free ISBNs issued by the platform (which is identical to USP's requirements), thereby incurring the same publisher-of-record and portability restrictions as authors in the USA.

Free ISBN vs. Purchased ISBN: Which Should You Choose?

The right choice depending less on cost but more on where you intend your book to publish. A free, platform-assigned ISBN is ideal for authors that are only publishing one edition with one retailer, are exploring a book for a small release, or are looking to publish a book as part of an academic or limited personal budget in which the publishing imprint is not as important. An ISBN purchased by authors in their own name or by an academic press may be more appropriate for authors who wish to sell through multiple online retailers and/or formats, or those who wish to have their own name or the name of their institution listed as the publisher, or authors who are looking into long-term print runs, library sales, academic citation indexes, and other avenues of distribution where consistent online information is important. Many academic authors eventually decide to do a combination: they protect the block of ISBNs by purchase for the formats and editions that they feel are most vital to the night life of their scholarship, and leave the supplementary or promotional copies to ISBNs from the free platform.

Step-by-Step: How to Get Your ISBN

First, check the country where you live, as a national agency may provide free registration or a number from the platform may be all that's available at no cost. Following that, you need to choose the form of your book, since paperback, hardcover, ebook and audiobook editions, if similar in content, will need their own unique ISBN. Fill out a form with the respective platform or national agency, using the exact title as on your finished book, and submit it via the publishing dashboard of that platform. Once approved, the ISBN will usually be listed in your account within a few days of processing and these can then be used for your manuscript file and cover design prior to your publication.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I really get an ISBN for my book at no cost?

Yes. If we are an author in the USA, we can get a free platform restricted ISBN through Amazon KDP, IngramSpark or Draft2digital, or an author in Canada or India can get a fully unrestricted ISBN for no cost at all from their national ISBN agency.

If I obtain a free ISBN, does it mean my book won't be sold through my publisher?

In most cases, yes. When the ISBN was issued for free by the platform, the imprint from the platform, usually 'Independently Published', typically will appear as the publisher of record, while if the ISBN was purchased or provided through a national agency then the name of the author's press or the author will show in that field.

Can I use a free ISBN on more than one platform?

Generally, no. One was free with one distributor and cannot be used with the other distributor; for example, an ISBN through Amazon KDP cannot be transferred to IngramSpark or vice versa. Alternatively, if multiple retailers require an identifier for the author, they should get their own ISBN.

Is a free ISBN suitable for an academic or scholarly publication?

It can be, when distributing working papers or conference proceedings or preliminary versions of books when the wide bookstore and/or library market is not an immediate concern. Most authors and university presses favor the purchasing of an ISBN that will be linked to their own institutional or academic imprint for a scholarly monograph in which future library acquisitions and citations are desired.

 

Also read How to Apply for ISBN in India

Explore more insights on Top 10 Self-Publishing Book Publisher

Further Reading: Convert Thesis to Book

 

References:

Ahmad, A. (2008). Are we equipped to update our knowledge due to change of the new ISBN system. In Proceedings International Conference of Education Technology (pp. 02-05).

Dagienė, E. (2024). The challenge of assessing academic books: The UK and Lithuanian cases through the ISBN lens. Quantitative Science Studies, 5(1), 98-127.

Griffiths, S. (2015). ISBN: A History. Information Standards Quarterly, 27(2-3), 46-48.

Kauffmann, F., & Cambon-Thomsen, A. (2008). Tracing biological collections: between books and clinical trials. Jama, 299(19), 2316-2318.

Kovač, M., Phillips, A., van der Weel, A., & Wischenbart, R. (2019). What is a book?. Publishing research quarterly, 35(3), 313-326.