***I’m starting a Backstory non-fiction book group. We’ll read a book a month, then join the author for a Zoom Q&A. Sign up here for more information. The first meeting will be in September.***
My pick this week
The Good Soldiers and Thank You For Your Service - both by David Finkel. Finkel is one of my absolute favourite writers. I was forever recommending his articles in The Washington Post to fellow journalists. These two books are little-known in Britain but so beautifully told. Start with The Good Soldiers, Finkel’s account of embedding with an infantry battalion in Iraq. Then pick up Thank You For Your Service, following the soldiers back home, as they are treated for war wounds, physical and mental. Some of the most beautiful, moving, humane writing I have ever come across.
Out-of-office emails: this is your time. From mid-July to the end of August, you can barely get half an hour of work done without a speedy pingback informing you that the person you were trying to reach (or the person she recommend you reach in her stead, or the person she recommended…) still spells holiday “annual leave”.
In general, I’m not a fan of the genre of “creative” out of office emails. I can do without a poolside snap or a somewhat less than sincere apology for being out of reach in “sunny Spain”.
But one bounceback did make me titter the other week. This particular rep’s automatic message announced: “I have a dental appointment in the morning. I do intend to be back at my desk. However, with the title of 9781509858637 in mind, please also follow the redirection instructions today.”
Google that number. Geddit?
All of this is a long way of saying: one thing I’ve been struck by in the last few months is how crucial ISBNs (International Standard Book Numbers) are to the book trade. I can’t think of many other products (apart from newspapers) that come with their own pre-printed barcodes.
They are so handy that their use is ubiquitous. I was initially surprised when a rep reminded me to always stick books’ ISBNs in my order emails. Now I think nothing of asking for five more 9780141995106, please. Every edition of a book - UK or US, hardback or paperback, original or reissue - has a different ISBN, making that string of numbers the most specific and efficient way of requesting a particular title.
So, since you told me you liked geeky emails (be careful what you wish for), I sent some questions to Eleanor Pigg at Nielsen, the company that assigns ISBNs and compiles the bestseller charts you’ve probably seen in The Sunday Times. She gamely responded in, well, quite a lot of detail. Here’s an edited version of our exchange:
Who came up with them and why?
In 1967, the Whitaker company generated the first SBN.
The SBN or Standard Book Number was born two years earlier, in 1965, when WHSmith challenged a professor of statistics at the London School of Economics to come up with an algorithm to help them track books. It has been integral to the book trade ever since, becoming the International Standard Book Number in 1970.
Each country has a National ISBN Agency that is only permitted to supply ISBNs to those publishing within their territories. We are therefore only allowed to supply ISBNs to publishers based in, and publishing from, the UK & Ireland and 14 British Overseas Territories, including such exotic places as Tristan da Cunha, Montserrat, Pitcairn and Turks and Caicos. Sadly we don’t get to visit…
What are the constituent parts of an ISBN?
ISBNs are calculated using a specific mathematical formula and include a check digit to validate the number.ISBNs don’t expire, however once used, they cannot be reused simply because a previous title is no longer in print. That ISBN identifies a single title and format of a book for life!
The ISBN is broken into five elements.
Bookland Prefix: this shows that the identifier being used is for a book – it is “from” Bookland
Registration Group: identifies a country, area or language area where the publisher is based and the ISBN is assigned
Registrant (Publisher) identifier: identifies a particular publisher and usually indicates the exact identity of the publishing house and its address
Title Identifier: identifies a specific edition of a publication of a specific publisher
Check Digit: validates the full number
Take the Writers and Artists Yearbook 2020 as an example, which is published by an imprint (or subsidiary) of Bloomsbury called Bloomsbury Information.The ISBN is: 978-1-4729-4751-2
This ISBN comes from an allocation assigned to Bloomsbury back in 2012 and contains 10,000 ISBNs. This prefix has been shared with other Bloomsbury imprints, so they can utilise the allocation as well.
978 - identifies that the product is a book1 – the Area Code or an Anglophone area, meaning that it belongs to a publisher based in either the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, or the USA. In this case it is an allocation assigned to the UK by the International ISBN Agency, which assigns all allocations to all agencies around the world.
4729 - the Publisher number for Bloomsbury. Together with the 1, this makes up the publisher prefix.
4751 - the title number – this is where the ISBN used comes in the allocation of 10,000 ISBNs assigned to Bloomsbury. This is the only sequential part of the ISBN.
2 - the final digit is completely random and seemingly makes no sense. This is the check digit, the result of the algorithm, which validates the whole number.
Are they the same in every book market globally?
ISBNs are geo-specific. Irrespective of your nationality, citizenship, what language the book is written in and where the book is printed or for sale, it is only the country in which you are based and are publishing from that determines where you acquire an ISBN. Even if, for example, you are English but based in and publishing from Spain, then the ISBN should be acquired from the Spanish ISBN Agency.
Of course, an ISBN is recognised internationally, which means that you can sell your book in whichever country you wish. If you are a non-UK-based publisher, you do not need to have a UK ISBN to sell your book through UK bookshops.
What is your favourite ISBN?
That would be like choosing my favourite child!
So there you are, just about everything you could ever dream of knowing about ISBNs. Thank you very much, Eleanor :)
If you want to be a real geek, go and look at them on your bookshelves now and try to work out which codes belong to which publishing groups!
My favourite bit of that exchange was definitely this, by the way: “ISBNs don’t expire, however once used, they cannot be reused simply because a previous title is no longer in print. That ISBN identifies a single title and format of a book for life!”
Wonderfully definitive!
Tom
*The sub-head is a ‘joke’ referencing the fact that ISBNs start ‘978’. Sorry.
Yesterday’s stall bestsellers (excluding newspapers!)
Killer in the Kremlin by John Sweeney. Signed copy.
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney.
The 130-Storey Treehouse by Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton.
Love from the Pink Palace by Jill Nalder. Memoirs of the real-life Jill who inspired It’s A Sin (Lydia West plays her character in the series)
Maps by Aleksandra and Daniel Mizielinski - a gorgeous illustrated collection for children…and oldies: I could happily flick through this for hours!
Like this kind of book nerdiness! And I love that ISBN out of office, it's an in joke but a good one :)