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  • How do I recover a lost ISBN book number?

How do I recover a lost ISBN book number?

April 9, 2009 / Dave Taylor / Writing and Publishing / 7 Comments

I self-published a book in 1983. I would now like to make it an e-book. I do not remember my isbn number. How do I go about getting that information?

This is an interesting question because there are a number of things we need to consider when thinking about your answer. Specifically the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) system wasn’t introduced until the early 1970s, so you’re good in that department: your book wasn’t published prior to that date, which would have meant you couldn’t have had an ISBN.
On the other hand you say that you self published a book which is likely problematic: most self-published works are not assigned an ISBN number, so it’s likely that you don’t have an ISBN number in the first place.
Further, if you have a copy of the book (or the original manuscript) then I would imagine that somewhere in that book, either on the first page or even the back cover, you would have added your ISBN number or even had it appear as a bar code.
There are a number of different tools that let you try and search known databases of published works for a specific ISBN too, but let’s start by checking out the official ISBN agency in the United States, the US ISBN Agency.
Unfortunately the US ISBN Agency only publishes its list of in-use ISBN numbers – over 150,000 of them – in print form. Very bizarre, but I cannot find an online searchable copy of the database.
There are other sites that have quite extensive databases of books, including many self-published titles, and can help you do more research to try and find your lost ISBN number. For example, biblio.com has a very sophisticated search form:

biblio search

Note in particular that on the lower right corner you can specify date of publication.
Another great place you can search is Amazon.com, which has such an extensive database of books that it even has some listed with me as author that I never wrote!
Do a search on Amazon and you’ll see a listing like this:
amazon growing biz google

No ISBN shown here (though the first generation 10-digit ISBN is actually encoded into the URL that Amazon uses, if you want to be a real geek about it), but click through, scroll down just a little bit, and you’ll find what you want:
amazon growing biz google details

Between those two – and carefully searching through a copy of your original self-published work – and you should be able to identify your ISBN number successfully.

About the Author: Dave Taylor has been involved with the online world since the early days of the Internet. Author of over 20 technical books, he runs the popular AskDaveTaylor.com tech help site. You can also find his gadget reviews on YouTube and chat with him on Twitter as @DaveTaylor.

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Starbucks coffee cup I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

7 comments on “How do I recover a lost ISBN book number?”

  1. George Denny says:
    May 18, 2017 at 1:56 pm

    I want to purchase books, but I lost my isbn number. Can my number be retrieved or can I get a new number? Also note my new changed email Address (georgedenny82@gmail.com).

    Thank you, George Denny

    Reply
    • Dave Taylor says:
      May 19, 2017 at 9:24 am

      I’m confused. You don’t need an ISBN number to purchase books. What are you talking about and on what site are you being asked for a number, George?

      Reply
  2. Kathaline says:
    May 2, 2014 at 10:00 am

    I purchased 10 ISBN numbers and only used 1. I lost the others, how can I retrieve those numbers

    Reply
    • may says:
      May 4, 2016 at 11:26 pm

      i purchase a set of 10 number my computer crash
      i have the first number but need my other 9

      Reply
    • Arnold says:
      December 2, 2017 at 1:07 am

      I too Los my IBSN how do I find it

      Reply
  3. George DeLong says:
    October 11, 2012 at 5:10 pm

    Many self published books have an ISBN number including mine. You failed to mention that one cannot use the same ISBN number a second time. Each additional printing (including ebooks) require a different ISBN that were originally sold to the publisher in a block of at least 10.

    Reply
  4. Val Harper says:
    April 15, 2009 at 1:37 pm

    Your local public library also has many resources to find a book’s ISBN (or several ISBNs, as hardcover and paperback and electronic versions have diferent ISBNs). They may refer you to WorldCat or other catalog resources.

    Reply

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