danwiz wrote:
I believe that IF (big if) CS/IS verifies an ISBN that they merely verify the name of the owner or verify that the number I enter has not yet been used.
As is often the case here, the most consistent thing about CreateSpace may be its inconsistency.
I know firsthand that CreateSpace has flagged imprint names that don't match what Bowker shows, so they must be checking it. (One of my more prolific clients has two imprint names that he created, both registered trademarks, but he forgets exactly how to spell one of them -- or just rushes through the initial setup step and gets it wrong -- and CreateSpace flags it every time. It's happened twice this month.) However, as in your case, if you haven't entered anything on Bowker, then there's nothing to check. But that brings up the next issue.
Since IngramSpark appeared, several members here have posted about the following problem: They published books using their own ISBNs through CreateSpace initially, then tried to publish the exact same books, with the same physical properties using the same ISBNs through Ingram. Ingram rejected them saying that the ISBNs submitted belonged to CreateSpace and could not be used (even though that wasn't the case). This led a number of authors and bloggers to conclude (and advise) that when using your own ISBN, one must set up a new title on Ingram first, even if the intent is to print through CreateSpace first.
We think this conflict on the Ingram side may actually occur because (when publishing through CreateSpace first) the upload of all new title metadata and print files (to the Amazons and other channel partners to make newly released book available to them) is done by CreateSpace in a batch process, with CreateSpace's publisher info globally entered into any missing data fields. So to Ingram and the rest of the wholesale/retail world, it looks like a CreateSpace title.
However, if the publisher assigns the ISBN within his/her Bowker account first, then the metadata fields in any type of cataloging system would reflect that, and (we believe) any attempt to replace those in a batch process would be flagged -- ultimately ensuring that (a) Amazon and other channel partners had the right cataloging info as intended by the publisher, and (b) IngramSpark (or other printers) would correctly recognize the ISBN as belonging to the publisher, and not see it as belonging to CreateSpace.
This may or may not be what's really happening under the covers -- there's no way to know. So I can only relay what I've experienced with our titles and those of the clients we handle -- and doing the initial Bowker setup as I suggested in my previous post has never resulted in any problems.
