Smart questions for smart people about ISBN, Barcodes, PDFs, and "e-Docs"

Smart people-

Now is your chance to show everyone how wicked smart you are.

Can you sell a PDF on Amazon? I already know how to publish on Kindle, I am talking about an interactive PDF that can be downloaded and read without an e-reader. (Is this called an "e-doc"? If so, what is the difference?)
Where can you sell a PDF(or an e-doc), if not on Amazon?
Should you assign an ISBN to a PDF that you plan to sell?
When assigning a barcode to an ISBN (for a print book), it looks like you have to assign a price that will be printed on the barcode. Can you change that price later?
If you decide to change that price later on Amazon and the bar code still reads a different price, is that a big deal? In this case, I guess it would be smart to assign the highest price you would ever charge and then you could always go down in price later, right?

Bring it on.

-Derek

Tags: Barcodes, ISBN, PDF, e-Docs

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tony DiLorenzo on July 30, 2012 at 6:20pm

Those are some big questions there Derek. I'll do some searching to see what I can find out for you. Hopefully others have had experience with these and can chime in on one or two.

1. From all my research at this time you can't sell a PDF on Amazon unless it is for Kindle.

2. You could sell your PDF on your website, Smashwords, Scribed, and Issuu.

3. There is no reason to assign an ISBN on the pdf.

Not sure on the last two.

Anyone have more experience with print publishing?

Permalink Reply by Derek Olsen on July 30, 2012 at 8:26pm

Thanks Tony

Let me add a little direction to questions 4 & 5. I think what I am trying to ask is this: At what point or "where" is the price actually set for a book? Is the price of a book hard-coded in the ISBN, the Barcode, or somewhere else? And on top of that, is that answer different because I am self-publishing a POD on Createspace then it would be if I was going through a traditional publisher and my book was on the shelf of a book store?

I think the price will be set when I upload it to Createspace for the POD, not before. Not on the ISBN or Barcode. Is this right?

On more, just to make things fun: Do I even need to assign a barcode to the ISBN if I am only doing Create Space POD?

Thanks

-Derek

Permalink Reply by Tony DiLorenzo on July 30, 2012 at 9:57pm

Since you are going through CreateSpace for this I would ask each of these to them via email or call. I have had great success working with CS in the past on one of my books. I had a response to my emails within 24 hours and if I called during business hours I always got a rep quickly.

Permalink Reply by Derek Olsen on July 31, 2012 at 11:55am

Huh, I never thought of just asking them.

Thanks again Tony.

-Derek

Permalink Reply by Andy Traub on August 14, 2012 at 1:18pm