ISBN numbers on an ebook?

[notthatamanda]

I bought a ten pack of IBSN numbers with the intention of getting all my books into print over the next year.  That will leave me with an extra or two.  Is there any reason to use one on a new ebook?  From what I have researched, the number can be used for tracking sales in case I hit it big, but is there any other reason?  I'm more put off by actually filling out the details on Bowker than wasting a number.   Thanks for the help.  Amanda

[Bill Hiatt]

To the best of my knowledge, the only benefit is that your sales will be part of industry-released statistics. This wouldn't make much difference for indie writers in general unless most people were doing it.

[RPatton]

It honestly depends. If you are wide, then it's a consideration if only because you have a single identifier across all storefronts. If you aren't, I would save them for your next print book.

[Bill Hiatt]

It honestly depends. If you are wide, then it's a consideration if only because you have a single identifier across all storefronts. If you aren't, I would save them for your next print book.

I think some of the aggregators assign a free ISBN. I know D2D used to. Of course, if you want the Amazon edition to have the same ISBN and weren't distributing to Amazon through an aggregator, you'd need to buy your own, anyway.

[Denise]

I use ISBNs for Amazon ebooks (just because I'm in Canada and ISBNs are free).

It's not useful at all.

- Amazon doesn't show it anywhere.

- If I make a search with the ISBN, it doesn't show up anywhere (other than my website, where I have it listed).

So my advice would be not to get an ISBN for Amazon. If aggregators give you free ISBNs for other stores, you can use those. I would only use ISBNs for ebooks if they're free or super cheap (if you buy 100, for example), because they're useless.