ISBNightmare

Every book needs an ISBN. It makes your book easily identifiable. What I had not realised was that you need a different ISBN for every flavour of your book. Hardback, paperback and e-book. As the rejections from the agents keep on flooding in, I now have my eye firmly on self-publishing. So I did a little research into how much an ISBN might set me back. KDP offer a free one, but obviously, I need three if I want to offer my book in different formats. I don't feel that the pricing is really geared towards the independent publisher. Some might argue that you can buy a bundle, but the bundle does not fit my needs. Here's how I worked it out. Calculators at the ready. A single ISBN is £93. Ugh, that's quite expensive. You can, however, buy a bundle of ten for £174. Ok, that is a much more reasonable value. The thing is that it would be okay if I had written a trilogy. One for each book, one for each format, and one spare. I have, however, written four books. So, I effectively need twelve ISBNs. I did the math. One bundle (£174) plus two singles ($186) equals £360. Alternatively, I could buy two bundles for £348. It's a better value, and I'd have eight spares. If you look at the next bundle, though, you can get a hundred for £387.
I have no idea how many books I am going to write. Will I stop at four? Will I write another trilogy? If I did write another trilogy, then I'd need another nine. If I bought two bundles of ten, I'd be one short. It does seem like an awful lot of money, but the hundred-bundle appears to make more sense. I want to know that given that most people sell in three formats (Hard, Soft, E-book), why don't the bundles reflect that? A bundle of three, twelve and a ninety makes more sense.