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Originally Posted by Notjohn
That's not what Hitch just said!
Or what I understood her to say: that an epub is an epub is an epub, regardless of whether Amazon sells it as such.
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What? Which post are we discussing? When my clients ask about ISBNs, I ask them a set of questions, e.g., are you selling on Amazon, or Amazon + other places? Are you FTP'ing an ePUB to Amazon, and other places, or not? Upon what other retailers do you expect to sell?
THEN, I tailor my ISBN response, based on the answers to those questions. I have a vanilla ISBN-thing on my FAQ, (This is the one that never gets read--has a case of tl/dr;
http://www.booknook.biz/ebook-conver...elf-publishing ) telling them that if they solely plan on selling on Amazon, iBooks and Nook, they simply don't NEED one.
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Originally Posted by AnemicOak
And format doesn't just mean ePub or Kindle, etc. If DRM is applied to an ePub then each version with the various DRM is a different format. In other words a "standard" Adobe DRM'd ePub is a different format from an Apple DRM'd ePub or a DRM-free ePub. However if the retailer, such as Amazon or Apple, is the only place to get a specific format of a book and if that retailer doesn't require ISBN's then an ISBN isn't required.
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Yeah, well..Bowker being Bowker, of course they have some logical argument as to why you need ISBNs for each "version." It's in their own self-interest. However, ISBNs exist solely for the purpose of ordering, fulfillment and payment. Period.
Therefore, discussing ISBNs in any environment in which the publisher uploads a copy of the book (digital book or POD, really, but let's stick with the convention of ISBNs for a print book), and the retailer does everything else vis-a-vis order fulfilment, collecting payment, paying out to the publisher, etc., then an ISBN is, truly, a moot point. It's gilding the lily.
Why? Because Amazon et al aren't "ordering" the book from a distributor. They're simply copying the source file and setting it to be downloaded by buyer X. Buyer X downloads the file, and Amazon collects the money therefor, albeit not in that order. There's no ordering, fulfillment and payment, in the "supply chain," because the supply chain has ceased to exist, in the tradtional sense of the word. Ergo, it's absurd to have ISBNs for any book that is solely sold in that fashion.
If, however, a seller/publisher goes through ANY type of distributor, like Smashwords or Draft2Digital, then having an ISBN serves a legitimate purpose. Those distributors bulk-upload ePUBs via FTP, sending along an ONIX or CSV/Excel metadata sheet. The ISBNs here serve the purpose of distinguishing Book A from Book B, with less chance of human error. So, yes, there,
there is a reason to have one/them.
If the distributor were the party putting DRM on the books, again, that would be a different scenario,
but that doesn't happen, either.
In fact, it's inconceivable, in this day and age, the way things worked out, that a publisher even COULD assign an ISBN to the book, once DRM is applied, because 99% of the DRM that's applied, is applied by the RETAILER (Amazon, B&N, iBooks, yadda)
after the book is uploaded and set to publish. How could John Doe publisher go in and assign that ISBN, post-facto? I mean, sure, they could log BACK into the Bookshelf, Dashboard, etc., and THEN assign ISBNs, but...crappity.
Talk about over-thinking something!
nj: still want to know exactly which post you're taking that from, and the context, please. TY.
Hitch