Helpful Articles
A Quick Guide to Bar Codes for Self-Publishers
by Jennifer Tribe
If you plan on selling your book through bookstores, a bar code is essential. Most wholesalers, distributors, and bookstores will not handle your book without one. In any case, bar codes are simple and inexpensive to create so even if you plan to do little selling through traditional channels, it's worthwhile to add one to your cover for the professionalism it confers.
The Bar Code Coding System
Books have their own category of bar code called the Bookland EAN. The Bookland EAN number is simply the book's 13-digit ISBN.
Since an ISBN is itself a code that indicates the publisher and title of a book, bar codes immediately identify specific books when they are scanned.
Price Extensions
Bookland EANs also include a price extension of five digits. The first digit indicates the currency. The number 5 is used for US dollars and 6 for Canadian dollars. The remaining four digits indicate the price itself. Thus, a price extension of 52995 means the book costs $29.95 US. Because the US dollar is commonly used as the designated currency, a Bookland EAN with a price extension is called an EAN-5.
If you don't encode the price of your book, your Bookland EAN will carry a price extension of 90000, which is simply a null code. This is known as EAN-9.
If you plan on selling in the US market, you must use an EAN-5 or EAN-9 since scanners in American bookstores cannot read bar codes without price extensions.
When you look at a Bookland EAN, there appear to be two bar codes side by side. The first, larger bar code contains the ISBN data. The bar code numeral appears at the bottom of the bar code, while the ISBN runs across the top.
The second, smaller bar code is the price extension. The image above shows our example book priced at $29.95 US. Note that you also have the option of specifying the price of your book in US and/or Canadian dollars in unencoded text across the top of the bar code.
Your bar code should be placed at the bottom of your back cover, ideally in the middle or right-hand corner.
How to Acquire a Bar Code
Many book designers can take care of creating a bar code for you as part of the cover design process, but one of the fastest and easiest routes is to use a bar code service such as Bar Code Graphics. Using their online form, you simply type in your ISBN and price information. Seconds later, you can download a fully encoded bar code file, ready for use. Best of all, it only costs $10.
© 2008 Highspot Inc.
Jennifer Tribe is a principal at Highspot Inc. Want to self-publish a book, produce an audio program, launch a seminar? Highspot can help transform your great ideas into lasting knowledge products.
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