ISBN

ISBN - International Standard Book Number (Previously 10 digits now 13)

Within the Central Books database some tiles do not have an ISBN, for example standing order records. In the "Understanding Standard Book Sales Report" example or dummy report "Maternity Handbook" with a report SO is such an example. 

Currently our standard pdf sales report uses the old ISBN10's to save on space, in the csv version of the same report ISBN13's are used.

There is possible confusion between EAN's / ISBN's and magazine barcode numbers. EAN's are 13 digit character numbers that make up a European standard bar code. 13 digit ISBN's and 13 digit EAN magazine bar codes are both kinds of EAN. ISBN's usually begin with 978 (soon we will see some beginning 979) and magazine EAN's begin 977.  The magazine EAN's are connected to ISSN's.

When ISBN's changed from 10 digits to 13 digits a 978 was placed at the front but the last digit often changed for example an ISBN10 0199336539 would have changed to 9780199336531. The last digit is a check digit.

To find out more about ISBN's take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number

To find out more about EAN's take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Book_Number

To find out more about bar codes please take a look at www.centralbooks.com/knowledge-base/book-publishers-information/barcodes-on-books.html

To find out more about magazine bar codes please take a look at www.centralbooks.com/knowledge-base/magazine-publishers-information/magazinebarcodes.html. 

To return to Understanding Standard Book Sales Report click here. 

More information about Barcodes and ISBN's

ISBN13's that begin 978 have a historic ISBN10 version, for example 978-0-714-732-909 has a 10digit version 0714732907 however the world is running out of ISBN's beginning 978 so there are now ISBN13's that begin 979 but these new ISBN's only have a 13 digit version. do not have. So the book with the ISBN 979-1-090-306-462 does not have a 10 digit ISBN.

Central Books distribute magazines and other titles that have 13 digit bar codes that are NOT ISBN's.

Not all barcodes are unique to one unique publication. Most of the none ISBN bar codes on our system are magazine bar codes for example 977-0-037-480-090 was the bar code for Sight & Sound Vol22/09 September 2012  to Sight & Sound Vol27/05 May 2017. Providing the cover price of a magazine does not change, the 13 digit EAN bar code does not change. So one bar code would relate to many issues of a magazine.

Rookie Errors

Just because you got an ISBN from the ISBN agency and you put it on the back of the book it does not mean anyone knows you have published a book. Always register new books with https://www.nielsentitleeditor.com/titleeditor/. see https://www.centralbooks.com/knowledge-base/book-publishers-information/bibliographic-databases.html for more details.