As new author in this world of self-publishing there seems to be a lot of confusion between ISBN, Editing and publishing. I have encountered a lot of people with the same issue hence I decided to discuss about it and provide a bit of an idea between the difference on the three terminologies and this will make it easier for new authors entering this field.
ISBN
ISBN: This acronym stands for International Standard Book Number. It is a unique number which is allocated to identify books and used by publishers, libraries, online book sellers and other supply chains. It is not mandatory to have the number however most booksellers might shun those books without this identifier particularly when in form of paperback. This unique number used to be ten digits (10) until Dec 2006. Starting 2007 the digits increased to thirteen (13). These numbers are divided with hyphens between them.
An example of ISBN: 978-0-6488978-0-4
ISBN does not carry any form of legal or copy right protection. Depending on some countries ISBN has been made a legal entity to identify book publications.
It is the responsibility of the author (self-publishing) to attain their own ISBN for their books, however some publishers offer this number for free. While it is good to gain something for free there is always a catch to it. Publishers who provide free ISBN limit the author to use their book title in any other platforms. The author also gives away their rights to publishing organisations if they gain free ISBN. Individual countries are responsible for issuing ISBN.
EDITING
Editing is the ability to review written information before it is published. It is a process used to make changes, correct and improve written work and make it better in presentation, use of words and flow. When authors finish writing their first manuscript, they go through their own written work many times to ensure that the story is interesting, clear and precise.
Writers also rectify any misspelling of words and adjust areas they need to rectify. This is the first editing of the manuscript. After this initial thorough editing, then the author approaches a professional editor who is good at providing honest feedback of the manuscript.
The editor might suggest some changes to help improve the manuscript. If both parties accept to the adjustments the author then makes a decision whether to publish their work. However interior designing of the book and cover are the next steps before publishing.
PUBLISHING
Publishing is presenting own work to the public through an organisation where everybody is able to view, read and gauge the book. It is at this stage where authors self-publish their work with different organisations such as amazon, Ingramspark among others. Organisation like Amazon does not charge any fee to upload and publish own book with them.
However, Ingramspark charge USD 49 dollars for paperback and every other time one makes an adjustment to the title they charge 25 dollars. The ebook cost 25 dollars and if publishing both at the same time it is a bit cheaper as it cost 49 dollars. I found that while Ingramspark has a wider distribution, adjusting and rectifying your title content can be costly. Every time an adjustment is done one has to pay 25 dollars and it can all add up to a lot of money.