Who am I? I am I - Ultimate Existential Reality answer ... paperback book allotted ISBN; Have applied for e-book ISBN

Last updated on 20th June 2018

Today (19th June 2018) when I checked the status of my ISBN application on isbn.gov.in, I was pleasantly surprised to see that an ISBN number: 978-93-5311-521-0 had been allotted to Papeback (Print-On-Demand) book type of my book, "Who am I? I am I - Ultimate Existential Reality Answer; Vedanta; God and Science conversation" (iami1 blogbook).

The issue of title in ISBN not having ? character (it is replaced by .), remains. So the title in the ISBN appl. is "Who am I. I am I - Ultimate Existential Reality Answer; Vedanta; God and Science conversation" whereas the actual book title is "Who am I? I am I - Ultimate Existential Reality Answer; Vedanta; God and Science conversation".

isbn.gov.in did not respond to my email to them dated June 13th 2018, about whether this minor discrepancy (due to isbn.gov.in web page not allowing ? character in title field) is OK with them.

The question for me was to decide whether I should go ahead and use the allotted ISBN number for the paperback (POD) book (and so modify the back cover page as well as the Title-Verso page of inner contents pdf) even though there is this minor discrepancy.

Some additional info. that helped me decide is given below:

This book, https://www.amazon.com/Who-Am-If-How-Many/dp/0385531184, has a cover page title of "Who am I? And If So, How Many?". The author is Richard David Precht. And the book type is Paperback.

The ISBN-13 is listed as: 978-0385531184

Clicking on the book cover image opens up a preview window where one can read the Title-Verso pages.

The Title page has the same title, "Who am I? And If So, How Many?"

The Verso page refers to the title as "Who am I?-And If So, How Many?"

The book (an English translation of an original German langauge book) is published in the USA by Spiegel & Grau which is an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. The publication year seems to be 2011, and the edition is "First U.S. Edition".

Looking up the above ISBN in https://isbnsearch.org gives the title as "Who Am I?: And If So, How Many?"

Using https://www.abebooks.com/books/search-number-code-10-13-digit/ISBN.shtml for ISBN search for the same ISBN number gives the title as the same "Who Am I?: And If So, How Many?"

Now this shows a minor inconsistency of additional : (colon) character in ISBN title as compared to book cover page title as well as book Title page title.

Given that this minor discrepancy related to punctuation character appears in a book published in 2011 by a famous USA publisher, Random House Publishing, I think that the minor discrepancy between my ISBN application (and so database) book title and actual cover page and Title page book title, should be fine. ISBN title is "Who am I. I am I - Ultimate Existential Reality Answer; Vedanta; God and Science conversation" whereas the actual book title (front cover page and Title page) is "Who am I? I am I - Ultimate Existential Reality Answer; Vedanta; God and Science conversation". The discrepancy is only of one character - a period . character in ISBN book title whereas actual book title has ? character. And this discrepancy was forced on me due to isbn.gov.in not allowing ? character in the title field of their webpage form for ISBN application.

So I am all set to go ahead with using this ISBN number for my paperback type book. I have sought the view of Pothi.com before I go ahead and make the changes to the book.

To generate the ISBN bar code which is to be put on the back cover page, I intend to use (have used) https://www.free-barcode-generator.net/isbn/. I have attached the generated barcode below. I need to find out whether this barcode is OK? And whether the size of the barcode pic - 0.85 inch x 0.67 inch - is fine for pasting onto bottom right part of cover backpage?

To check that the barcode alone gets recognized correctly as an ISBN number, I created another pic with only the barcode without any ISBN number text above and below the barcode. That pic is given below.

Then I used this free online barcode reader application: https://online-barcode-reader.inliteresearch.com/ to read the above barcode only pic and arrive at the ISBN number. It did that successfully giving the correct ISBN number of: 9789353115210.

Pothi.com already has the 17th June 2018 updated release for the paperback book (that got accepted today evening). Here's the link: https://pothi.com/pothi/book/ravi-s-iyer-ultimate-existential-reality-answer-vedanta-god-and-science.
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Today evening I also applied for an ISBN at isbn.gov.in for the e-book corresponding to the paperback book. It would have been better if I had specified need for an ISBN for paperback and for e-book in my first application itself. But I was new to the ISBN application process then and so wanted to first concentrate only on ISBN for paperback book.
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20th June 2018 Update

Pothi.com was OK with the ISBN minor title discrepancy issue (. character instead of ? in one place only). About the barcode image: Pothi.com informed me that as long as it is legible on the (back) cover page, it would not be a problem.

I plan to work on update of the files to incorporate ISBN and then submit the updated files to Pothi.com for the paperback (Print-On-Demand) version of the book.
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An Indian correspondent (IC) who is a self-publishing author wrote (and was OK with public sharing):
An achievement! Most self-publishing authors give up on getting an ISBN.
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I (Ravi) responded (slighly edited):
Oh! I was not aware that most/many self-publishing authors give up on getting an ISBN. It did seem a Himalayan task for me too, especially with the Title length and ? character in title issue I had with the web application form. But I persevered and it worked out eventually without too much of a hassle though it did take close to 3 weeks (from 31st May application date to 19th June ISBN allotment) to first get approved as an author (as I had registered with them for the first time) and then get approval for the ISBN application. I think I should put up a post explaining the ISBN application process at isbn.gov.in, from the perspective of an applicant like me which is a different perspective from that of the user manual provided by isbn.gov.in for the application process, for the benefit of self-publishing authors who don't know how to go about it and feel intimidated by the process (like I felt intimidated when I started with the process).
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IC wrote:
You have now been through all the steps in self-publishing a book. I wonder if you would consider posting a sort of condensed 'manual' (in many parts) of each of the decision points in the process: choosing whether and how to self-publish (completely self done, using a printer-publisher, using Amazon etc.), what different publisher-printers offer, how to get copyright, how to get an ISBN etc. It would be of great help to others embarking on the same path.
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Ravi wrote (slightly edited):
I had planned to put up an index post after I finish the process of including ISBN in the POD version book as well as e-book (I have just applied for e-book ISBN and so it may be two weeks before I get the ebook ISBN). This index post would list all the posts that I have put up capturing the process I went through to convert my free blog to a proper blogbook with ISBN, both Print-On-Demand (priced at cost) version as well as e-book version (free), that were self-published using support services of Pothi.com (free service for the option that I chose), with the e-book getting put up at noted free e-book sites of archive.org, Open Library (openlibrary.org), Project Gutenberg (self.gutenberg.org) and free-ebooks.net. [The e-book is also available at Pothi.com.]The Open Library book entry found its way, without any effort from my part, into the trove section of the National Library of Australia!

Note that ISBN is available for free for Indian citizens with PAN card (Indian Income Tax Payer card) and Aadhar card (a photo identification and address proof card in India with a unique number assigned to each Indian citizen).

Based on your input, I will consider adding summaries to the index post, where appropriate. I don't want to spend too much time on these summaries. But I will try to quickly and tersely capture main points.

Free ebook(s) put up on leading free ebook sites mentioned earlier, seems to be a very powerful way of making one's views, findings, thoughts & ideas easily available on the Internet! It also adds to book name and author name recognition in Google search (and other search engines too, I guess).

Some Google search results info. from tests I did just now:

Google search (in incognito window to remove/reduce search result bias for my google id) for:

Ultimate existential reality answer

gives my book as the top 3 results (pothi.com and free-ebooks.net). Note that this search string was part of the earlier title in pothi.com POD book

Google search (in incognito window to remove/reduce search result bias for my google id) for:

Who am I? I am I - Ultimate existential reality answer

gives my book as all the first ten results (archive.org, pothi.com, self.gutenberg.org, trove.nla.gov.au, iami1.wordpress.com, free-ebooks.net, ravisiyer.blogspot.com). Note that this search string is (and has been) part of the title in archive.org, gutenberg.org and openlibrary.org (trove.nla.gov.au picked it up from openlibrary.org)

Google search (in incognito window to remove/reduce search result bias for my google id) for:

Ravi S. Iyer book author

gives this book as some of the top results (with some results pointing to other posts on my blogs)
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