Guest Column: ISBN There, Done That
E-books have created both opportunity and havoc for publishers. Readers have begun to love (or at least claim to love) the benefits of e-reading on a screen. However, the processes for traditional book creation, distribution and use (based on a physical artifact) are fundamentally different from those of a fluid information medium. A few agile technology companies have realized short-term financial gain, but for publishers there are few clear, sustainable best practices for e-book publishing.
One particular business practice, the use of unique ISBNs as identifiers, has had success in the process of tracking and selling physical books. However, publishers have inconsistently applied ISBNs to e-books, often relegating this task to intermediaries or abandoning it altogether in favor of proprietary identifiers.
There are valid reasons for this. Different stakeholders (authors, publishers, distributors, retailers, aggregators, libraries) have different economic reasons for wanting a unique ISBN on a particular work. A standardized ISBN approach is fine in theory, but no one really knows the impact of change on existing practices and IT systems. E-books themselves are more easily modified and aggregated with other content—begging the question of when there is a unique product to which a new ISBN must be assigned.
The biggest problem is the sheer number of unknowns in the process. While some companies are moving forward with their own solutions, most of us haven't really asked the bigger questions. Is a 13-digit ISBN model adequate for this mutable medium? How can an identifier developed for a physical delivery supply chain be successfully applied to an information-based supply chain? What are the business obstacles to a uniform, high-level ISBN solution? How does one identify a digital work that may (or may not) be comparable to an original print version?
For that matter, is the phrase "original print version" a meaningful concept any longer? For many publishers, this is scary stuff.
- Companies:
- The Book Industry Study Group
John Parsons (john@intuideas.com), former Editorial Director of The Seybold Report, is an independent writer, ghostwriter, and editor. He is the co-author of the interactive printed textbook, Introduction to Graphic Communication, on the art, science and business of print, which has been adopted by Ryerson, Arizona State, the University of Houston, and many other schools and vocational training centers. Custom editions of the book are under consideration by major printing companies and franchises for internal training purposes.
