This post is about Google’s ‘Knowledge Graph’, aka beautiful author and book plates that show up in title searches.
Yes, us authors always moan about having to buy an ISBN. Relax, you are going to love this secret I found out. Multiple book authors with ISBNs get the Google star treatment!
The benefits of having your own ISBN at Thorpe Bowker:
- It is yours to keep up to date (not a publisher you can’t get hold of), you get to inform library suppliers and so help along sales,
- You can assign a library discount, discounts to retail, and
- You may be assigned a section by Google which matches your ISBNs to you and brings up a special box with all your books in it when someone does an exact title search on Google.
I love that bit the most! Find below the searches that bring up the ‘special AUTHOR box’. (Click arrow for next image).
OK, so one time I went the cheapskates way and took up the ISBN of Kindle and Smashwords. Look what happens when I search for that (exact match) book title:
The result is a bit sad, especially as it brings up the old cover I don’t like. (Listings like this one made via Tablo cannot be easily retracted).
Even though I also have another author listed under my account, that author has not got mixed up with my listings.
The only time this occurred was when I tried to reuse a drafted ISBN listing of another authors’ with a title of mine: never do this. It’s not worth the problems that follow and I even called the ISBN agency! Always get your ducks neatly in a row before releasing your ISBN data to the world through Thorpe Bowker’s Books in Print listings.
Should you apply to Google for fixing any wrong author information?
Naturally, things change with how Google decides to bring up books. See latest screenshot (the first one). It is hard for me to rank my books above the famous Jen Lancaster, us having the same name, but I can amend incorrect information about me!
Should you buy ISBNs? You will have to weigh up whether it is worthwhile to have your book series’ Google visibility or not!
ISBNs just keep all author book data sorted by number, but that doesn’t mean things don’t ever go wrong. If cover pictures are missing, you will have to chase it up, usually with your print publishing partner.
