: Re: If I get a free ISBN through Amazon's CreateSpace now, will that impact any decisions about getting my own ISBN later? I am preparing my book for print-on-demand through Amazon's CreateSpace

@Gail2416123

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I arrived at your question from my query: should I use a CreateSpace ISBN? so my answer is not so much answering if having a CreateSpace ISBN will impact decisions about getting another ISBN, but it does shed light on another important consideration for allowing an entity other than yourself to contol the ISBN: metadata.

Metadata is how people will find your book while searching for it.

This mediashift article has a handy screenshot of the metadata you can enter on Bowker.

You will have the opportunity to insert gobs of data here — title,
author, description, number of pages, size, language, currency,
copyright year, date of publication, contributors, category, title
status (out of print, active, etc.) price, currency, and a photo of
your book cover.

The article goes on to state:

The ability to control and edit the metadata for your book whenever
necessary is a key reason you need to buy your own ISBN direct from
Bowker and to not let an author services company buy it for you.

mediashift.org/2010/10/a-self-publishers-guide-to-metadata-for-books285/
Over the past 90 minutes of searching that I've done trying to educate myself, I haven't been able to find the definitive answer on the metadata you do control if you use CreateSpace's free ISBN. I'll have to report back, when I go through the process.

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