Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

I click on Barnes and Noble and the link to my book does not work. I never want my readers to think I force them to buy from Amazon. These are the other links:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-c...
http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/eboo...
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id77...
I also want Shaman's Blues, my second book, to have functional non-Amazon links. It's not up on Kobo yet--slow--but it is on B&N and I-Tunes.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shama...

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id82...

Hi Amber,

The bookseller links are customized by users, and they are linked to the ISBN entered for a particular edition. The bookseller links work by searching the indicated bookseller's database by a book's ISBN (or title, if the ISBN is missing). This is straightforward for paperbacks or other physical formats because the ISBN issued is used by all booksellers. For ebooks, however, many booksellers have their own proprietary systems for numbering. For example, Amazon kindles have ASINs instead of ISBNs. If you use the Amazon bookseller link from the kindle page of your book The Calling here, you go straight to the kindle page. If you try to use the B&N link, however, you'll get an error because B&N does not stock the kindle edition. Instead, you'd need to use the B&N link from an edition of your book with B&N's proprietary ebook number (called a BNID) for their Nook edition. Same with Kobo. It may seem complicated, but Goodreads users by and large are pretty savvy about shelving the edition they most want and navigating the bookseller links they prefer.

I'm happy to create edition pages for the B&N and Kobo editions of your books. The only caveat is that we can't take info or covers from bookseller sites (except Amazon). That includes the proprietary ISBNs. The URLs you provided for your book at B&N and iTunes include that info, so I've got that now. Can you tell me what the Kobo ISBN is for The Calling? It will be 13 digits long and start with "123...". And can I assume that the publication date, cover, and page numbers are the same as for the kindle edition?

I need the same info for Shaman's Blues's Kobo edition, once you have it.

I take it back about the info i need for itunes being in the url. I need the ISBN for the ebook ed, probably starts with "978..."

Also, I had to revert some changes you made to your kindle edition. We keep all editions, even those that are no longer available. To change the default edition to the currently available kindle edition (or to any other edition you'd prefer), follow the instructions here:

https://www.goodreads.com/help/show/3...

Z-squared wrote: "Hi Amber,

The bookseller links are customized by users, and they are linked to the ISBN entered for a particular edition. The bookseller links work by searching the indicated bookseller's databas..."

Kobo ISBN for The Calling is: 1230000200798
Thank you.

Z-squared wrote: "I take it back about the info i need for itunes being in the url. I need the ISBN for the ebook ed, probably starts with "978..."

Also, I had to revert some changes you made to your kindle editio..."
The old ASIN for The Calling isn't a valid number. It was taken down and deleted by Amazon when they had a dispute with Draft2Digital, my aggregator. It will not go anywhere as far as I know. There is no such edition in existence. I had to start a new KDP account and upload the book as if it had never been published before in Kindle.
I could not figure out how to create a new edition. I may have messed up by removing what I am pretty sure is not a valid Kindle identifier--the old one. This obviously confuses me. Sorry. The things about reverting changes would make sense to me if the old number related to something that was still available. Or does it need to be there for some reason for people who purchased it before this hassle took place?

Amber wrote: "Or does it need to be there for some reason for people who purchased it before this hassle took place? "

Exactly. Users on Goodreads like to shelve the edition that matches the one they own. Just because a book is no longer available for sale doesn't mean there isn't a user out there who doesn't own it. It may seem like hair-splitting when it comes to ebook editions like this, but it's policy. Goodreads is not a bookstore or a bookstore-aggregating tool. It's like a library that never, ever throws out old books! But you CAN and should set the default edition to something that is currently available. If you don't want to do the kindle edition, set it to the paperback edition since that ISBN is valid across multiple booksellers.

I've added several editions for you. See them all here:

https://www.goodreads.com/work/editio...

Thanks. The default edition is the current Kindle since most people look at that for previews.