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Problems with listing older books that dont have an ISBN but do have an ISBN
You are right! The title of this post doesn't make sense. .
I am trying to list a 1960s paperback published by The New English Library (NEL). My book doesnt have an ISBN. The listing already on Amazon shows the Publisher to be Hodder and there are are both a short isbn and a long one. (I HATE ISBNs!!!!!) . What seems to have happened is that the original lister has looked up the information on Neilsen and found that NEL has been taken over by Hodder and it has now been given an ISBN. So far this is not an uncommon occurrence with thousands of old books being misleadingly shown to have ISBNs. My case goes a little further. I tried to list my book with that listing but got the message that I needed to get permission to list Hachette books. Stodder have been taken over by Hachette.
To get permission to list an Hachette book Amazon give me a list of things which I cannot possibly produce - eg invoices from Hachette!!.
I can never understand why there is a blind acceptance of ISBNs.
13 replies
Seller_FQHkqHJI5SqTh
Have you considered that this book and the others remained in print into the ISBN era?
Re. the permission thing, not something I had run into before, don't usually list mass market titles, until a couple of weeks ago when trying to list a Helm title, yet I have Helm/Poyser/Bloomsbury Wildlife titles and other Bloomsbury imprints listed. Sold it elsewhere.
Seller_19xPhE8YgkmxW
Hello dunsterville34 ,
I share your frustration.
ISBN's usually help to uniquely define an author and title (but not always) and they do not define Publisher, Year of Publication, Printing Number or Cover Illustration/Artist, all of which can be important to a Seller/lister or a collector.
However the alternative would be to have to list all of these elements for every book, and some would run into hundreds of Variants (The Bible, The Hobbit etc... ). Just allowing any Seller to add their variant would lead to a proliferation of choice and a huge cluttering up of the (already cluttered Data Base) - even assuming all of these additions were added accurately...
It is clear that Amazon view their book customers as primarily readers (and not collectors) and so they use the ISBN as a default - but do provide an Advanced Search (of limited use)
I agree it is frustrating, particularly for pre-ISBN items - where frequently it is impossible to list the book accurately - but it is perhaps the least-worst solution?
As for the requirement to provide Invoices for minimum 10 copies purchased from the Publisher within the last 6 months, I have said before, this is valid for NEW books but should NEVER be applied to USED - but is almost certainly imposed by Publishers protecting their reprint rights and sales!
All Best
Brian
Seller_RAXEWLxQ2dbmN
Have you tried searching for the book as a buyer would by entering the title and author into Amazon search?
Unless it's a very obscure title there are almost certainly matching ASINs that do not have ISBNs.
Does the ISBN you you are currently looking at have a 'See all formats and editions' link on the product page just under (and probably to the right of) the title?
You will likely find older, pre-ISBN editions lurking there.
[edited to add] if you list an older edition under a current one from a different publisher you invite potential customer problems, especially if it has different cover art.
Seller_87mKFKKA3Vwkx
list it as 'collectable' and write an explanation in the product details
Seller_eX5PU1b0GGPXn
List it as Collectable . The book was nominated and won awards . Science Fiction always has a lot of followers Someone will want an early publication and it doesn't appear to have multiple re prints
There are lots of collectors out there
Good Luck
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