The ISBN
To sell a book through retailers an International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is necessary. And the printed format needs a bar-code too. You buy both through the Bowker website, Myidentifiers.com. But many book distributors/aggregators, including, Smashwords and IngramSpark also offer ISBN for free when publish with them. IngramSpark, also, provides a free bar code with their free book cover template. Each format of a title is required to have its own ISBN. Meaning if a title has been formatted for print, e-book, and audio three separate ISBN are to be assigned respectively.
The Bowker ISBN Packages are as follows:
1 ISBN option $125
10 ISBN option $295
100 ISBN option $575
1000 ISBN option $1500
Note: ISBN are not necessary when publishing an e-book directly to Amazon Kindle Direct (KDP), Barnes & Noble (NooK), Apple (iBook), Kobo Books, or Google Play Books
