SOME TRIVIA about ISBNs:

[Lily]

"Amazon assigns a 10-digit number (alphanumeric) to your eBook, but it is NOT an ISBN-10. It is an ASIN-10 with the "A" standing for Amazon, I assume. Many reviewers require you to give them your ASIN. To find the ASIN, go to your individual book listing on Amazon and scroll down to find it on the left side of the page, under the area where the picture appears. Both the ISBN-13 and the ISBN-10 are listed at Amazon for print books only, but you will find only an ASIN listed for your eBooks, even though we are asked (it's not required . . . yet) to input the ISBN-13 when we upload to them.

Your ISBN is unique. If you have a book that is published as both eBook AND print, you will have separate ISBNs for each of those versions. Bowker is striving to make it mandatory for each separate format of eBook to have an individual ISBN as well, just as the hardback ISBN is different from the paperback. In other words, the ePub ISBN would be different from the PDF ISBN, etc. This has not yet been mandated, and we hope it won't be because of the additional cost of producing the additional formats, but just so you know, it could happen in the future.

ISBNs are coded to the individual publishers, which means your individual ISBN cannot be transferred when you change publishers, or if you decide you wish to self-publish your book. You would have to buy your own, or your new publisher would have to assign a new ISBN. In many other countries, ISBNs are free, but in the good old US, they are a costly commodity for publishers, and an even more costly one for individuals who self-publish. A single ISBN costs the individual more than $200, but if said individual is prolific enough, he/she can buy a block of 10 for under $300! Publishers who can afford it can buy a block of 1000 ISBNs for just over $1000, which makes the individual ISBN cost only slightly more than $1 each. Incidentally, a block of 100 ISBNs costs only a bit less than $1000, so the block of 1000 is the best way to go, price-wise."

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[Lily]

"History

In 1965, W. H. Smith (the largest single book retailer in Great Britain) announced its plans to move to a computerized warehouse in 1967 and wanted a standard numbering system for books it carried. They hired consultants to work on behalf of their interest, the British Publishers Association's Distribution and Methods Committee and other experts in the U.K. book trade. They devised the Standard Book Numbering (SBN) system in 1966 and it was implemented in 1967.

At the same time, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical Committee on Documentation (TC 46) set up a working party to investigate the possibility of adapting the British SBN for international use. A meeting was held in London in 1968 with representatives from Denmark, France, Germany, Eire, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and an observer from UNESCO. Other countries contributed written suggestions and expressions of interest. A report of the meeting was circulated to all ISO member countries. Comments on this report and subsequent proposals were considered at meetings of the working party held in Berlin and Stockholm in 1969. As a result of the thinking at all of these meetings, the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) was approved as an ISO standard in 1970, and became ISO 2108.

That original standard has been revised as book and book-like content appeared in new forms of media, but the basic structure of the ISBN as defined in that standard has not changed and is in use today in almost 150 countries. "

www.isbn.org/standards/home/isbn/international/history.asp