In her memoir, One Writer’s Beginnings, Eudora Welty describes her childhood forays to the local library. The stern librarian, Mrs. Calloway, would look up from her desk, “her dragon eye on the front door” and if sunlight passed through young Welty’s dress, the librarian sent her home. “You could just put on another petticoat if you wanted a book that badly from the public library” (29).

Welty did.

Thankfully, the librarians in my experience bear no resemblance to Mrs. Calloway. In fact, I ADORE librarians.

I had occasion to visit one as I struggled to prepare my Books in Print listing.

What is Books in Print?

When you buy your ISBN, you are entitled to a listing in Books in Print, which lists nearly all books printed in the U.S. (Side note: as you buy your ISBN’s, make sure myidentifiers is in the URL so that you can receive your numbers immediately.)

As you register your book,  you will be asked to include a description. (Okay, I think my first mistake is that I took this assignment VERY seriously. I’m trying too hard, approaching this too academically.) But still, if someone turns to Books in Print to check out your book, you want the description done correctly.

What should the tone of this description be? Conversational—check out this rad tab, dudes! Suspenseful—little did she know what lurked behind the basement door. Erudite—Never in the annals of history has such a book…You see the problem. I mean, you wouldn’t write your book blurb without reading a few (or 20) book jackets, now would you?

And so, armed with reading glasses and good intentions, I set out trippingly on my adventure. I clambered up the mottled green marble steps to the library records room. I had browsed Books in Print up here several times in the past. But now, where I expected to find shelves filled with books, I saw popular magazines.

Guess what? In this new era of ours, Books in Print is neither—not a book, not in print. Not anymore. Two librarians tried to help me search for a copy. One even took me into the storage room to look for some old editions. No luck.

The problem, now that Books in Print is only available online, is that the resource has become the province of the acquisition librarians. The records librarian and the reference librarian both lacked the ability to access the “books” without login or password.

The librarians apologized. I thanked them. I left the building feeling…sort of dismayed.

Why does only one company sell the ISBN’s for an entire nation? Isn’t that rather, er, Unamerican? And why does only one company “publish” the list of titles? And why is the public denied the free and easy access to the list that it once enjoyed?

Once home, I sent a polite email to Bowker (the publisher of Books in Print) requesting a few samples of fiction listings. Bowker did not send me any samples, only instructions not to make it too long. Grumbling, I drove across town to consult the only actual book Books in Print in my city’s entire library system.

Mind you, the edition was dusty and six years old.

It was still worth it. Browsing through the books, I learned some things and realized others.

First, here is what someone who wants to order your book will see: your name, pub date, pages, genre (what they in the biz call “audience code”), price, ISBN, publisher.

Second, what you need to know about title. You will be asked for an optional sub title. An obvious choice for nonfiction, but I wasn’t sure about fiction. I mean, should I say title: Moonlight Dancer; subtitle: A Novel, the way it appears on the title page? In the library I found a few done that way. Subtitles such as “A Mystery Romance.” However, these were mostly indies, and alongside the big guys, the entries looked amateurish. So, my advice is no subtitle for fiction.

Third, I discovered Books in Print comes with an index that provides booksellers and librarians additional information. For instance, the publisher’s address, email, website and contact person will appear in the index. This tells me I need to set up an email address for my publishing company, New Potato Press, and hopefully, a name other than my own as contact person. I’m not out to fool anyone that I’m one of the big guys, but I do want potential buyers to take me seriously. Eventually, a publisher’s website is in order, but at present I lack the resources for that.

After my experience, I still feel that Books in Print should be accessible to the public via the library catalog. Barring that, there is another solution. I could buy the online Books in Print myself for, the librarian informed me, $700.

A bargain, yes?