ISBN issue with submitting my "Who am I? I am I ..." Word/PDF ebook to free ebook websites like archive.org that automatically generate other ebook formats like EPUB and Kindle

Last updated on 13th July 2018

As posted earlier my ebook titled "Who am I? I am I - Ultimate Existential Reality Answer; Vedanta; God and Science conversation" has been allotted an (one) ISBN (for E-book book type/book version).

The application form does not ask whether the e-book format is PDF or EPUB or Word or any other such e-book format. It has one book version called e-book which I think covers all these formats, as the only other book versions mentioned in the ISBN application (web) form are paperback and hardback.

But the User Manual of isbn.gov.in (website of Indian ISBN allotting agency - RRNA) at http://isbn.gov.in/usermanual.pdf on Page 19 states the following:

End users need to know a) whether the e-book that they are purchasing will work on their device or software and b) what they will be able to do with it (e.g., copy, print, lend, text to speech etc.). This is normally defined by a combination of file format (e.g., EPUB, .pdf) and software known as Digital Rights Management (DRM) which controls, by technical means, the use that can be made of the e-book. Separate ISBNs will facilitate management, dissemination and discovery of that information as well as delivery of the appropriate version of an e-book.

• Where a specific qualifying e-book is available in different underlying file formats such as EPUB, .pdf etc., each different format that is published and made separately available should be given a separate ISBN. If the publication is migrating to a new version of the file format (e.g., EPUB2 to EPUB3), then a separate ISBN is essential if both versions are available simultaneously or if retailers and customers need to distinguish the versions.

--- end extract from page 19 of User Manual of isbn.gov.in ---

Going by the letter of above section of User Manual of isbn.gov.in, I should have different ISBN for Word and PDF versions of my ebook. Further my submission to archive.org (previous submission of this ebook without ISBN can be viewed here: https://archive.org/details/20180424EbookNotPrintColourCoverBWContentsA5WhoAmIIAmINGodNScience) gets automatically converted to additional formats like txt and epub. That complicates things further.

But my ebook is free and does NOT have DRM. So the problem of a user/customer ordering for a particular format and paying for it, but receiving a different format, is NOT THERE. The user may download for free a format other than what he wants/intended to but he is free to download another available format of the ebook without paying any money.

So can one take the view that it is fine if I use the same allotted ISBN number for both my Word document version and PDF document version of the ebook offered for free download on my blog and some other websites including archive.org? Further, archive.org would automatically convert the submission to additional ebook formats like epub and text, all of which will have the same ISBN. As all the converted books having different formats/book types are available for free download from archive.org, can one say that there would be no problem even if the ISBN number is the same in all the various book formats/types?

Note that the epub and mobi/Kindle versions that are automatically created have different number of pages from the PDF and Word documents (original docs). Further note that in the ISBN application form I specified the number of pages as the number of pages in the PDF document, which is the same as in the Word document.

SAFE APPROACH?
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Perhaps the safe path to take is to provide ebook websites like archive.org that automatically generate different ebook formats, a version of the ebook WITHOUT ISBN but specify ISBN number in the metadata. In this case, the verso page of the ebook (or any other page in the ebook) would NOT mention the ISBN number.

Only ebook websites that DO NOT automatically generate new formats should be provided a PDF version of ebook with ISBN in the Verso page.

Further, the Word document with ISBN number should NOT be publicly shared, even if that Word document is the source to create the PDF ebook with ISBN number in Verso page.

The approach described immediately above seems to be a safe approach that will conform to isbn.gov.in User Manual guidelines with respect to ISBN and different ebook formats.

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13th July 2018 Update

Please visit my blog post: Released e-book with ISBN version of "Who am I? I am I ..." iami1 blog book; Changed metadata of some ebook website entries to mention ISBN, http://ravisiyer.blogspot.com/2018/07/release-e-book-with-isbn-version-of-who.html.