ISBN and ASIN
Last updated on January 5, 2025
GuideWorking with ISBN
The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) of a book is a unique number which helps identify information about published works. While Hardcover will pull most information associated with an ISBN automatically, it can still be helpful to know how to use an ISBN to retrieve data about an edition you’re intending to add to the database.
Note: Some retailers may refer to an ISBN as European Article Number (EAN).
Dissecting an ISBN
An ISBN consists of 5 distinct blocks:
| EAN | Group | Publisher | Title | Check digit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 978 | 1 | 9747 | 3463 | 4 |
EAN: Almost always 978 or 979.
Registration Group: Either a language-sharing country group, individual country or territory.
Publisher: A unique number issued to a registered publisher by their local or national ISBN registration agency.
Title / Publication Element: A unique number assigned by the publisher which is associated with a specific edition of a book.
Check digit: A checksum character or digit, validating the ISBN.
Most blocks do not have a fixed number of digits, making it difficult to split an ISBN into its parts. However, publishers often separate them with hyphens. When you add an ISBN to Hardcover, the hyphens are automatically removed.
Identifying the publisher of a book
With the help of the first three blocks it is possible to look up the publisher of a
specific edition. The International ISBN Agency maintains an annually updated and searchable database of all registered publishers: The Global Register of Publishers.
In the example above the registered publisher for any works starting with 978-1-9747 is Viz Media, United States of America.
Identifying a Country/ISBN mismatch
You will often find that Hardcover has pulled the wrong information for the
Country field of an edition. The second block of an ISBN will make that obvious
at a glance.
| Group | Region / Language Area / Country |
|---|---|
| 0 | English |
| 1 | English |
| 2 | French |
| 3 | German |
| 4 | Japan |
| 5 | Former USSR |
| 6 | Prefixes of length 2 or 3 |
| 7 | China |
| 8 | Prefixes of length 2 |
| 9 | Prefixes of length 2, 3, 4 or 5 |
For a complete list, refer to Wikipedia
If you see ISBN 9782820344960 with the Country listed as United States of America you will immediately know that this edition needs editing!
We can also use the group block to identify whether an edition with a Portuguese title was published in Portugal (972) or Brazil (85).
Calculating ISBN-10 and ISBN-13
Books published before 2007 will most likely use a ten-digit long ISBN. Similarly, books published after 2007 often lack an ISBN-10. You can calculate the corresponding ISBN with an online tool.
Retrieving information about a book
The ISBN does not encode information such as title or author of a book. Hardcover will pull these fields from various databases automatically. We can verify this data with the help of a few websites:
- ISBNsearch.org: Quickly check the binding, publication date and associated cover.
- WorldCat: WorldCat will often include physical descriptions of a book, including the page count.
- Amazon: Searching for an ISBN will return the product page associated with the book. Amazon has high resolution covers and often a complete list of series information.
- Google Books: You can search through Google’s
database for a specific book by appending
isbn:in front of the ISBN. Example:isbn:9782820344960.
Careful: Google tends to auto-translate. The result above shows Band 1 for users in Germany, but the edition is actually from France and should be labeled as Tome 1!
Finally, you can look up information directly on a publisher’s website, which will often feature the most accurate and up-to-date data.
National Libraries
National libraries are tasked with the preservation of documents and works published in their respective countries. This makes them a good source of information about international editions of a book.
| Country | Website |
|---|---|
| 🇦🇺 AU | National Library of Australia |
| 🇨🇦 CA | Library and Archives Canada |
| 🇨🇳 CN | 中国国家图书馆 |
| 🇫🇷 FR | BnF Catalogue Général |
| 🇩🇪 DE | Deutsche National Bibliothek |
| 🇬🇧 GB | British Library |
| 🇯🇵 JP | 国立国会図書館 |
| 🇳🇱 NL | Koninklijke Bibliotheek |
| 🇵🇱 PL | Biblioteka Narodowa |
| 🇵🇹 PT | PORBASE Catalogue |
| 🇨🇭 CH | Schweizerische Nationalbibliothek |
| 🇪🇸 ES | Ministerio de Cultura de España |
| 🇮🇹 IT | Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale |
| 🇺🇸 US | Library of Congress |
Retailers
Retailers are also a good source for information, for example:
- Agapea (Spain)
- Barnes & Noble, Powells (United States of America)
- Cultura, fnac (France)
- Thalia, Bücher.de (Germany)
ASIN
Amazon uses the Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN) for product identification within their internal system. ASIN is not an international standard. You can view the ASIN of a book on the associated product page on Amazon’s website. The quickest way to find the ASIN is to look at the URL:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0143105434
The ASIN usually follows directly after dp. For Wuthering Heights the ASIN
is thus 0141439556.
Note: For printed books, the ISBN-10 is usually the same as the ASIN.
- ASIN Collector is a Firefox extension that can bulk-extract ASIN’s for all available editions of a book.
eBook ASIN
For eBooks the ASIN usually starts with a B and is listed under Product
details.
For example, the ASIN for Wuthering Heights - (Penguin Classics Deluxe
Edition) is B0768ZM5QH.
Other available tools
isbntools
- isbntools is a python CLI application capable of retrieving ISBN information from various sources. It can also process multiple ISBN provided by a text-file or even other CLI programs.
Please refer to the official documentation for install instructions. Some useful commands:
# Fuzzy find an ISBN from the title (always confirm the result!)$ isbn_from_words "mistborn final empire"9780765311788
# Return a collection of ISBN's associated with a book$ isbn_editions 9780765311788978841314319497841502049909784150204952
# Get basic meta information$ isbn_meta 9780765311788Type: BOOKTitle: Mistborn - The Final EmpireAuthor: Brandon SandersonISBN: 9780765311788Year: 2006Publisher: Macmillan
# Calculate ISBN-10$ to_isbn10 9780765311788076531178X
# Split ISBN into its elements$ isbn_mask 9780765311788978-0-7653-1178-8
# Use a specific service and output-format$ isbn_meta 9780525505143 goob json{"type": "book", "title": "Wuthering Heights - (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)", "author": [{"name": "Emily Bronte"}], "year": "2009", "identifier": [{"type": "ISBN", "id": "9780525505143"}], "publisher": "Penguin"}