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Leave a comment August 5, 2019 Steve Wiggins

I risk being seen as even more of a book nerd by addressing the topic of International Standard Book Numbers, or ISBNs. For those who’ve purchased a book in the past several decades, you’ve seen ISBNs, but perhaps unwittingly. They’re represented by a barcode, often on the back cover in the lower left corner, or sometimes the middle. The ISBN is the edition’s unique identifier, but it isn’t necessarily a guarantee that the contents will be exactly the same since typos corrected for new printings may use the same ISBN already purchased. Yes, you read right. Publishers have to purchase ISBNs. Without them listings on many websites and distributors’ lists would be impossible. The ISBN is what fulfillers use to order books since neither author nor title is necessarily unique. Many book titles have been used to the point of dullness.

A typical ISBN

A colleague recently complained to me about being able to request permission to reuse something from a book without an ISBN. Rights vendors often require them. The ISBN came into usage, however, only in 1970. As I’ve learned from trying to load older books into my Goodreads list, there are all kinds of complications and potential confusions if you don’t have the unique identifier for your source. Titles cannot be copyrighted, and many are consequently overused. The ISBN is your guide to a specific book. If the book came before the ISBN system it’s going to take some extra work to ensure that you find the correct way to identify what you’re talking about. This is only one of the many ways in which the book industry differs from most others. It’s also the reason that I generally object to corrected printings.

Perhaps it’s odd to see a publishing professional take a hard line on book content. The fact is almost always an author is given the opportunity to proofread, well proofs. The copyedited, typeset book is given to them. Yes, errors may creep in after this stage, but that’s not very common. If an author didn’t catch mistakes, then a corrected edition ought to be published with a new ISBN. But that’s not how it works. Each ISBN should indicate the exact same content. Although an ISBN must be purchased, just one isn’t expensive (witness all the self-publishing going on these days and that should be obvious). Publishers that have to buy many thousands of them, however, are disinclined to waste them. I’m not a fan of all technology, but the ISBN seems like a good concept to me. Even if it’s not a guarantee that things are what they seem.

1 Comment April 27, 2017 Steve Wiggins

Here’s another post originating from my daily work as an editor. (As an editor you tend to assume nobody’s really interested in what you do all day, but I’ve been told this isn’t so.) What is copyright? And do I have it? First of all, a caveat: I’m not a lawyer. Copyright is complex and, to answer my second question first, yes, you do have it! So what is copyright? Essentially it’s the protection of intellectual property. As long as that property remains in your head, it’s yours alone. Once it’s expressed in writing, art of any kind, music, or even as a chart, it is automatically covered by copyright. If you want to use something someone else wrote, or produced, in your book, you need permission. Small quotes are generally considered fair use, but don’t push that doctrine too far! Fair use is listed as just that, a doctrine.

What many authors don’t realize is that your book contract is an exchange—you’re selling your copyright to the publisher for their services (they publish your book, promote it, register the copyright (it already has copyright, but registering helps to protect it legally), and handle the financial aspects of selling your book). You can’t publish your own work again without permission of the publisher. Sometimes I’ve had people ask me to use my artwork (from my own published articles) in their work. I don’t mind, of course, but I don’t own the copyright! If I published my work, the publisher has taken that copyright and I remain simply the author. If I want to publish my own published work somewhere else, I have to ask permission. Copyright, however, doesn’t last forever.

The only safe date before which material can be used without fear of infringement is 1922. Works published before then are in the public domain. Right now new works (such as this blog) are covered by copyright for the life of the author plus 70 more years. After that, unless the law changes, you don’t need permission to reuse these idiosyncratic musings. Not that that’s ever been an issue. I’m not a litigious person, but I do like to be cited. (Who doesn’t?) In any case, if you’re working on an academic piece, and you want to reuse somebody’s drawing, or an extended piece of writing, or even a tiny bit of a poem, you must have permission to do so. That’s what copyright does for you. The “fair use doctrine,” like most doctrines, doesn’t hold up well in court. If in doubt, just ask. Before you do, though, you might want to consult a copyright lawyer, just in case.