What's all this ISBN business?

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Marshall Burns:
Rustbelt inches ever closer to publication, and I've got me a question: what's the deal with ISBN numbers? What are they for? Where do they come from? Why/when should I worry about them, and to what end? Please, somebody enlighten me!

Thanks!
-Marshall

jrs:
Here's the official ISBN site for the United States: http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/index.html. In short, the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) uniquely identifies a book and its publisher. It is the key identifier used by book sellers, book stores, and libraries. If you ever special ordered a book, you probably were asked for an ISBN. You can type an ISBN into pretty much any search box you want, e.g., Amazon, google, worldcat, etc, to locate the matching book.

Julie

Eero Tuovinen:
Many hobby game publishers forgo ISBN numbers and barcodes, so it's not unprecedented to do so. This is especially true of the US, where you pay for ISBNs.

Marshall Burns:
So, unless I plan to sell it through book stores and/or Amazon, there's no purpose to having one, yes? What about game stores?

Eero Tuovinen:
The traditional hobby store won't use ISBNs in their stock control, but a more modern boardgame store (actually they're interested in EAN numbers and barcodes, of which ISBN is effectively a subset) or bookstore will. If the store focuses on rpgs in the first place, it's a pretty safe bet that they have the capability to handle your wares without a ISBN, is my experience. Doesn't hurt to have it, of course.

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