Hacker News Reader

Comment by millicentricism | Hacker News Reader

This also fails to take into account that ISBNs also contain the publisher ID in them. So identical copies of a book could have different ISBNs depending on which markets they are sold in.

View on HN

I'm not sure this is the case, I got my ISBN range through my government national library service, I could be wrong but when you let them know what the book is you are publishing they ask for the Publisher name, though I am guessing as the service is free and it only applies to New Zealand books and publications.

They don't contain the publisher name, but ISBNs are usually purchased in blocks of 10 or 100 or 1000 or whatever by a single entity, which is often a single publisher or corporation.

However, within the block publishers can assign ISBNs to different imprints.

For ISBNs from the big 5, the number really does indicate the publisher. I think the 5th digit (second after 978) can indicate at least some of the big publishers. Smaller ranges are available for purchase from the brokers. In Canada, the national library will even issue you one for free, if you self-publish.

The ISBN always indicates the country it's from, the United States getting the biggest block, other European nations and Japan getting their own, with Africa, the Middle East, and so forth all getting a block in common.

ISBN prefixes does not always indicate a country. They may be are indeed countries, but others are language areas (e.g. 0/1=English) or "regions" (groups of countries) or even other subjects.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISBN_registration_grou...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com