Owning your own ISBNs

Authors sometimes ask if it’s worth it to buy their own ISBNs from Bowker instead of using Amazon’s free ISBNs. I’ve always believed it’s better to own your ISBNs for print books (although I don’t currently own them for my e-books), but this week I had a concrete example of why and thought I’d share.

KDP does not allow authors to change their paperback’s title or subtitle after publication. I ran into this after changing the subtitle of my historical novel to better reflect its setting and align with other books in my genre. KDP did allow me to change this information for the e-book. But when I asked customer support if they could change the paperback subtitle for me, I was told that was not an option because the current subtitle was attached to my ISBN, so changing it would cause a conflict with the ISBN record. I politely said thank you and then started to wonder.

Sure enough, when I signed in to my Bowker ISBN dashboard, Bowker let me change the subtitle. So I politely contacted Amazon again to say that I had been told a subtitle change would create a conflict with my ISBN record, but because I own my ISBN, I needed to change the subtitle to avoid a conflict with my ISBN record. After two days and a screenshot of my ISBN registration, Amazon’s technical team changed my subtitle for me.

So, if you’re contemplating whether you should buy your own ISBN, take this into account. It will give you a lot more control over your book’s data.

Which leads me to ask, would you all recommend registering my own ISBNs for my e-books as well even though I’m in Kindle Unlimited and have no plans to go wide?