When did Kobo's store starting using "Book ID" instead of ISBN?

[Cactus Chef]

See: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the...ies-collection

I'm pretty sure that *used* to say "ISBN", which made it a more reliable lookup field for tagging in Calibre and such that Amazon's stupid ASIN. But "Book ID" makes it sound more generic. Is that because ebooks have a separate designation than their paper counterparts?

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by Cactus Chef

See: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the...ies-collection

I'm pretty sure that *used* to say "ISBN", which made it a more reliable lookup field for tagging in Calibre and such that Amazon's stupid ASIN. But "Book ID" makes it sound more generic. Is that because ebooks have a separate designation than their paper counterparts?

Wayback machine has that book having an ISBN just a year ago. It's the same number as the current "Book ID".

Do self-published eBooks get ISBNs? That might be why.

[DNSB]

From what I've seen, almost all self-published books on Kobo get a Book ID which looks like 1230008927877 which is not a valid ISBN and likely the reason the field is now labelled as Book ID.

A while back I had an issue with one library book where I got the wrong book from Kobo since the self-published book had the same ISBN as the library book. A while later I noticed their self-published books now had ISBNs starting with 123 which was likely to keep that issue from reoccurring.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

...
Do self-published eBooks get ISBNs? That might be why.

No ebook actually needs ISBNs. They are for physical books, and a different version or different size with same content needs a different ISBN, because that are really P.O.S. EAN/UPC codes for physical retail.

There are several ways for an ebook to get an ISBN.
1. A distributor such as Draft2Digital/Smashwords. Then they are technically the publisher.
2. In Norway a SP physical book can have a free ISBN. I don't know how ebooks in Norway work.
3. You can buy an ISBN. It can only ever be used for one edition. Single or small numbers are expensive. Blocks of 100, 1000, 10,000 etc are very much cheaper, but depends on Country. Normally you have to use the ISBN agency for where you live, not where the book is published.

You don't need a company. Even big publishers use Imprints. An imprint is simply a name you register with the ISBN block selling Agency. Then no-one else can use it in that country, even if you don't register it as a Trademark.

The book world is strange. You can't copyright a title and can use one in use. The "pen name" doesn't need registered and isn't copyright, unless it's a Trademark.

You can take PD text and the edition with your formatting is your copyright. Someone has to treat that the same as any other paper or ebook in terms of copies, except they can freely copy the content without the formatting!

Hence the King James Version (AV) of the Bible is Crown Copyright, perpetually, no expiring, but the actual text isn't. The PD versions may use scans and proof edits of sources like Matthew Henry's Commentary as it's long out of copyright and includes the entire text of the King James Version.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DNSB

From what I've seen, almost all self-published books get a Book ID which looks like 1230008927877 which is not a valid ISBN and likely the reason the field is now labelled as Book ID.

Likely only SP ebooks direct on Kobo, or somehow distributed with no ISBN.

Originally Posted by DNSB

A while back I had an issue with one library book where I got the wrong book from Kobo since the self-published book had the same ISBN as the library book. A while later I noticed their self-published books now had ISBNs starting with 123 which was likely to keep that issue from reoccurring.

Someone cheated, or made a strange mistake*. An ISBN has to be issued by an agency and is unique even for different sizes of same content. An ebook can't legally use a paper book's ISBN, even if the same content and publisher.

[* There is a check digit]

A different ISBN is assigned to each separate edition and variation of a publication, but not to a simple reprinting of an existing item. For example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book must each have a different ISBN, but an unchanged reprint of the hardcover edition keeps the same ISBN.

—wikipedia ISBN

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by Quoth

No ebook actually needs ISBNs. They are for physical books, and a different version or different size with same content needs a different ISBN, because that are really P.O.S. EAN/UPC codes for physical retail.

The main reason they exist is to uniquely identify a book and the edition. That's still needed for ebooks.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Someone cheated, or made a strange mistake*. An ISBN has to be issued by an agency and is unique even for different sizes of same content. An ebook can't legally use a paper book's ISBN, even if the same content and publisher.

[* There is a check digit]

—wikipedia ISBN

From what I understood, the author used a site that supplied them with an ISBN not realizing that the site was not a legitimate site. After several complaints including from Bowker (USA) and Library and Archives (Canada), the site was shut down.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

The main reason they exist is to uniquely identify a book and the edition. That's still needed for ebooks.

In a physical shop for a physical book. Hence titles using KDP have an ASIN but may not have an ISBN.

Oddly an ISBN is totally optional for an ebook, which is why the major stores with direct SP have their own ID system, because in most countries the ISBNs have to be paid for. An Amazon Kindle ASIN or a Kobo eBook ID is free.

Actual publishers, or people Self Publishing everywhere will use real ISBNs. Unless an ebook is only in one store and ISBN is the best solution.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DNSB

From what I understood, the author used a site that supplied them with an ISBN not realizing that the site was not a legitimate site. After several complaints, Bowker (USA) and Library and Archives (Canada) had the site shut down.

Certainly someone would as ISBNs are part of ISO. You don't what China, Russia, France, UK and USA actually agreeing via the Security Council to put tanks on your lawn

[salamanderjuice]

Originally Posted by Quoth

In a physical shop for a physical book. Hence titles using KDP have an ASIN but may not have an ISBN.

Oddly an ISBN is totally optional for an ebook, which is why the major stores with direct SP have their own ID system, because in most countries the ISBNs have to be paid for. An Amazon Kindle ASIN or a Kobo eBook ID is free.

Actual publishers, or people Self Publishing everywhere will use real ISBNs. Unless an ebook is only in one store and ISBN is the best solution.

They exist for more than physical shops! That's why ebooks get assigned unique ISBNs, to get identified differently from the paper version. They are useful for libraries, creating citations, anywhere a unique book ID is useful.

ISBNs are not required for self published paper books either.

[ownedbycats]

To answer the thread title, sometime around October 2024:

https://github.com/NotSimone/Kobo-Me...fa3b481e13c29a

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

They exist for more than physical shops! That's why ebooks get assigned unique ISBNs, to get identified differently from the paper version. They are useful for libraries, creating citations, anywhere a unique book ID is useful.

ISBNs are not required for self published paper books either.

They are if you want to sell the paper book in any physical shop.

As most English Language ebooks are sold via Amazon (over 90%), the ISBN isn't needed. Amazon uses their proprietary ASIN. The ISBN is only needed if the ebook is distributed on more than one ebook store (and Libraries count as an extra "store"). I did explain that. So any ebook in a regular Library (not solely Kobo Plus or Kindle Unlimited) will have an ISBN and will be on one or more ebook stores. I did explain this. Perhaps not clearly enough.

Note that SP titles in KU scheme, or Amazon published titles, are never in real libraries, and SP KU are never on other stores nor authors' web sites. Only large publishers can use KU non-exclusively and they always have ISBNs, because in bulk and ISBN is extremely cheap. That's why anyone SP only one or two ebooks should use Draft2Digital/Smashwords, get their free ISBN and let them redistribute to Amazon, Apple, Nook, Kobo etc. It's madness and hurting the then entire ecosystem to only use Amazon KDP, and now with Draft2Digital/Smashwords distributing to Amazon there is no need to use KDP at all.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by salamanderjuice

Wayback machine has that book having an ISBN just a year ago. It's the same number as the current "Book ID".

Do self-published eBooks get ISBNs? That might be why.

But that version of Silo is not self-published.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

But that version of Silo is not self-published.

And that is likely why it's Book ID is a valid ISBN. If it was self-published (KWL, etc.), the Book ID would start with 123. Do you want Kobo to start differentiating when a simple eyeball check is sufficient to differentiate between the two?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

And that is likely why it's Book ID is a valid ISBN. If it was self-published (KWL, etc.), the Book ID would start with 123. Do you want Kobo to start differentiating when a simple eyeball check is sufficient to differentiate between the two?

They should have ISBN for books with an ISBN and Book ID for books without an ISBN.