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How to get ISBN in India? Here’s all you need to know.

ISBN means International Standard Book Number. Consider it as a catalog number for books. If you are self-publishing your book, it is a good idea to get the ISBN. It is not mandatory for publishing a book, but it is needed if you want to sell that book on retail channels like Amazon, Flipkart, etc.

Publishers can get ISBN numbers in bulk. But for an individual like a self-published author, getting the ISBN was a hassle and time-consuming process earlier. But the good news is that thanks to technology, it is now very easy and quick to get the ISBN in India.

How authors can get ISBN in India

Who needs the ISBN:

An ISBN is not an absolute necessity for publishing a book. However, if you want to sell your physical book on retail channels, then you do need this number. Also, many ebook self-publishing services like KDP, Smashwords, and Draft 2 Digital automatically allocate the ISBN or similar number to ebooks. You can use your own ISBN, but you don’t need to. You can just keep the automatically allocated number.

However, some services (mostly for print books) don’t allocate the automatic identification number. For books published through these services (like pothi.com), you’ll need to get the ISBN if you want to sell your print book to other retailers. Also, remember that you need a separate ISBN number for every edition or format of the book. You can’t use a print book ISBN with your ebooks.

Before you apply for the ISBN:

When you apply for ISBN, you are asked to upload the book’s cover and give information about the book’s page count and price. You also need to upload a Title Verso page (explained later in the post) and scanned images of identity proof like the Aadhaar card. So you need all that ready before you apply for ISBN.

Price of the ISBN in India:

Are you wondering what ISBN costs in India? Well, it costs nothing! That’s right, you can get it for free by just applying for it.

ISBN India

Where to get the ISBN in India?

In India, the ISBN is allocated by Raja Rammohun Roy National Agency for ISBN. The agency has its office in Delhi. Earlier, authors and publishers needed to send the application to the Agency. After manually reviewing the application, the agency used to assign the ISBN and send it to the applicant via normal post.

But now, you don’t need to send any written application and then wait for the approval. The whole process has come online now. So, just head over to http://isbn.gov.in/ to apply for your ISBN.

Register:

The agency website will ask you to register first by clicking at the ‘New Applicant Registration’ button. Once your registration is approved, you can apply for the ISBN. This approval process takes less than a day. You’ll get approval or rejection notification over the mail. When approved, the agency will assign you a temporary password which you can later change.

Make sure to keep you login details safe. If you apply for another ISBN later on, you can use the same account.

Process of applying for the ISBN in India:

Once your account is approved, and you are logged in at the agency website, You can apply for ISBN by clicking at ‘Apply For New Application.’ You’ll need to fill a form and upload your cover and identification proofs. The form is not lengthy or complicated. Still, if you have any confusion, the agency provides a step-by-step guide for it. Just fill your details, upload your book’s cover and your identity proofs and submit.

The Title Verso page for ISBN in India:

Along with the Cover design and Identity proofs, you’ll also need to upload a Title Verso page which gives information about the author, printer, copyright holder and copyright notice, etc.  A wrongly filled Title Verso page can delay the approval of the application. Thankfully, I did not face any such problem. If you want, you can download the Title Verso template that I used and follow it.

Final Approval:

Once you submit the application, you’ll get a mail stating your application has been submitted and you need to review it and submit it for further processing. At this review step, if the website gives you an error notification, you need to correct that in your application. If there’s no error notice, just review the application and submit.

You should get your ISBN within 24 hours of final submission.

Getting ISBN in India is now easy and quick

Earlier, the whole process involved over a month-long wait and also depended upon the efficiency of the postal department. I remember, when I applied for ISBN for my novel Lemon Girl, I had to wait over a month and then rescue the ISBN letter as it was about to flutter out of our gate. But all that is a thing of the past now, thanks to the magic of the internet. When I applied for the ISBN for my You Came Like Hope, the whole process from user registration to ISBN allotment took just 3 days! Really, getting ISBN in India has never been this easy and quick.

* All time estimates are based upon my experience and might not be the same for everyone and at all times.

How to convert ISBN into Barcode for your book

You may have noticed that the ISBN is given as a Barcode on the back cover of print books. But how to get that ISBN Barcode for your book?

Well, if you hire a professional book cover designer, then putting that Barcode image on your cover is their responsibility. So you don’t need to worry about it.

If you plan to design the book cover yourself, you may find the Barcode generator utility in the cover designing tool you use. For example, I converted the eBook cover of my #JustRomance into its print book cover using the cover creator tool of pothi.com. I just needed to copy-paste my ISBN number in it and the tool automatically converted it into a Barcode.

If your cover designing tool doesn’t have this facility, you may try some online Barcode Generators. Here’s one Barcode Generator that seems to work well. You just copy-paste your ISBN 13 in its Code field, scroll down the page, and hit Generate. Then you can download your Barcode in the format of your choice, such as PNG, JPG, PDF.


Check out Jyoti Arora’s Books

(Click on the picture given below)

Author Jyoti Arora's website and books

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2 Comments

    1. Hi,
      When you get the ISBN, it is already registered in your name. You don’t need to register it anywhere else.
      As for the barcode, my cover designer turned the ISBN into barcode. There are many online barcode generators available as well. If you search for ‘ISBN to barcode’ you’ll find them.