posted by Chrispian at 08:33 PM - Category: Book Biz
The ISBN number on the back of all books is getting ready for a change: the new ISBN numbers will be 13 digits long, instead of 11 digits long. Most publishers are getting ready for the change by issuing both an ISBN-11 and an ISBN-13 for books this year. The change will take effect on January 1, 2007.This isn't really "big news" for the book business, exactly. Having only 11 characters for the ISBN has obvious limits, as does the new 13 character ISBN. My question is, why not just go to 15, or 16 now? Why wait? Pad some zeroes in there now and keep from having to do this again anytime soon.
But why is this happening, you may ask. Well, apparently we're running out of ISBN numbers and the powers that be want all books around the world to have a common identifier.
Writer's Blog: New ISBN Numbers Are Coming
