How to get a barcode for your book

Almost all books these days have a barcode - because almost all book retailers require one. So if you're serious about selling your book through mainstream retail channels (i.e. any shop or store, including online), you're going to need a barcode on the back cover of your book. The good news is that it's easy and inexpensive to do. This article tells you how.

Get an ISBN number

The first step is to get an ISBN number for your book. In the UK, you can apply to the UK ISBN Agency (Nielsen). See the website at http://www.isbn.nielsenbookdata.co.uk. There are ISBN agencies in most countries, as ISBN now handle book-numering worldwide.

Although ISBN numbers have to be bought in blocks of at least 10 at a time, they only cost roughly £10 (UK Sterling) each, and are even cheaper if bought in larger blocks. Typically, it will be a book publisher who purchases the blocks of numbers, so having to buy a block of 10 is unlikely to be a problem.

Convert the ISBN number into a barcode

Now you've got an ISBN number for the book in question, the next step is to convert that ISBN number into an ISBN-13 (sometimes called 'Bookland') barcode image suitable for use on the book's back cover. Luckily, this is very easy to achieve.

By far the best way to get your ISBN number into a barcode image, is to use some computer software to do it.

There are a few things to consider at this point, but bear in mind that good barcode software will handle all these for you:

Your barcode image must be printed at the correct size and resolution - and unlike many images, barcodes do not respond well to being resized in DTP software.
You may want your barcode image to have the same colour background as the rest of your book's cover - or you may want it to be black-on-white, which will improve scanning accuracy at the checkout.
You will want to be able to save the barcode image as a graphics format file, ready to import into your Desktop Publishing (DTP) application - from there, you'll add it to the cover of the book.
For some markets (including the United States), an optional 5 digit extension can be added to include the price of the book or other information. It is sometimes a 2-digit extension if the publication is a magazine or journal. Your publisher will advise on this.

Barcode software varies widely in features, specification, price and performance. Our product 'AVS Barcode Source' is very inexpensive, and can produce high-quality ISBN-13 barcodes to contain your ISBN number - including the optional 2 or 5 digit extension. It's very easy to install and use, and outputs to a variety of graphics formats understood by DTP software.

The software even has a 'set to standard' option, which will help ensure that your resulting barcode image meets all the requirements of the standard, and will scan accurately every time. For more details, click here to read more about creating ISBN-13 barcodes for books with our software.

Test the barcode!

Before going to press with your barcode, it is essential to test it. No matter how carefully the software may have stuck to all the standards, you need to ensure that it will print with the combination of options you selected, and on the type of printer and paper you are using. So do a small print-run first and then test the barcode using a variety of barcode scanners, or better still, dedicated barcode veryifying equipment which can be bought or hired.

Now your book has a registered ISBN number, and a high-quality barcode image printed on the back cover, so you can concentrate on getting it as widely distributed as possible!

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