What Happens After I Finish Writing My Book?

You’ve written it, you’ve edited it, and you’re ready to publish. This is the point where most new authors get stuck, not on the writing, but on everything that comes afterwards.

This page walks you through it in order: getting your ISBN, adding it to your book, getting it printed or published electronically, and then the part almost nobody explains: how a reader or a bookshop actually gets hold of a copy, and how to decide what to charge.

Step 1: Get your ISBN package

An ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is the unique 13-digit number that identifies your book. It’s what bookshops, libraries, wholesalers and online retailers use to find, order and sell your title. If you’re printing purely for family and friends, you don’t need one. If you want anyone else to be able to buy it, you almost certainly do.

There are three components, and which you need depends on your book:

The ISBN number. Required for every publication you want to sell. This is the number itself.

The barcode image. The scannable bars printed on the back cover. If your book is physical — paperback or hardback — you need this, because retailers scan it at the till. If you’re publishing an e-book only, you don’t need a barcode image, but the ISBN number still needs to appear in the front matter.

Registration on the Nielsen Book Database. This is what makes your book findable. Without it, your book exists, but no bookshop or library knows about it. More on why this matters in Step 5.

Our membership packages

Membership is a one-off cost. There are no annual fees. Your ISBN number and barcode images are emailed to you automatically as soon as you order through our automated system; you don’t have to wait days for them.

See full details of our ISBN packages.

A few things worth knowing upfront

  • You need a separate ISBN for each format. Paperback and e-book are two different products and need two different numbers. So is a hardback, and so is each translation.
  • A new or revised edition needs a new ISBN. A straight reprint does not.
  • “Independent Publishing Network” will be your publisher of record. That’s the imprint name that appears on Nielsen and on retail sites like Amazon.
  • You keep everything. Copyright and all rights and proceeds remain with you, the author. We supply the ISBN and registration; the book is entirely yours.
  • You must live in the UK or Ireland to join our network. If you’re elsewhere, please use your national ISBN agency. You can find it via the International ISBN Agency.

Step 2: Put the ISBN on your book

Your ISBN goes in two places, and both matter for different reasons.

On the back cover. The barcode image is in the bottom-right corner of the back cover and must be in place before the book goes to print. It should be at least 30mm wide × 20mm high, including the white margins on either side and the ISBN printed below the bars. We email the image in several formats so you can use whichever suits your designer or your software.

Already printed your book without a barcode? You don’t need to reprint. You can order a roll of self-adhesive ISBN barcode labels and apply them to the back cover.

In the front matter. This is the copyright page near the front of the book, and it does more work than people expect. Alongside the publisher, publication date and ISBN, it carries your contact details, or your distributor’s. That’s how a reader who already has a copy works out where to buy another, and how a bookshop knows who to order from. Many authors add a copyright notice here too, though in the UK copyright is automatic and marking it is optional.

Publishing an e-book? You don’t need a barcode image, but the ISBN still belongs on the copyright page of the file, exactly as it would in print.

Full instructions and templates for using your ISBN.

Step 3: Get your book printed

If you’re printing locally and have already found a printer, you can skip ahead. If not, the main decision is print run size.

Traditional print runs give you a lower cost per copy but require you to pay upfront and store the stock. For a first book by an unknown author, ordering 1,000 copies is a common and expensive mistake that you may spend years working through.

Print on demand (POD) lets you print small quantities, often 100 copies or fewer, or even print single copies as orders come in. The cost per book is higher, but you’re not carrying stock or capital. For most first-time self-publishers, this is the safer route.

Whichever you choose, get quotes at several different quantities before you commit. The cost per copy changes significantly with volume, and you’ll need those figures for pricing (Step 6).

Some UK printers who handle small runs:

Make sure your printer has the barcode in place before the covers go to press.

Step 4: Publishing as an e-book

Not every book needs printing. If you’re publishing electronically, either instead of a print edition or alongside one, the process differs in a few important ways.

You need a separate ISBN

An e-book is a different product from a paperback, so it needs its own ISBN. If you’re releasing both, that’s two numbers. Each additional format (hardback, audiobook) needs its own as well.

You don’t need a barcode image

Barcodes exist to be scanned at a till, so an e-book has no use for one. If you’re publishing only electronically, the £30 package (ISBN plus Nielsen registration) is all you need.

What you do still need is the ISBN number itself displayed in the front matter of the file, on the copyright page, exactly as you would in a printed book. Include your contact details there too, for the same reason: it’s how a reader tracks you down.

Preparing the file

Your manuscript needs to be converted into a format the retailer accepts, usually EPUB or a Kindle-compatible file. You can do this yourself with free tools, pay a formatter, or upload a Word document to a platform that converts it for you. The main thing to watch is that e-books reflow to fit the reader’s screen. Fixed page layouts, careful typesetting and manual page breaks often don’t survive conversion. Check your file on an actual e-reader or phone before you publish.

Some helpful resources:

Where to sell it

Through the major platforms. You can use our ISBNs on Kindle Direct Publishing, Barnes & Noble Press, Apple Books and others, because you own the rights to the number. During setup, you’ll be asked for the ISBN (enter the 13 digits with no hyphens) and the Imprint or Publisher, which is Independent Publishing Network.

A word on the free ISBNs these platforms offer. KDP will give you one at no cost, but it’s registered under the imprint “Independently published” and can only be used on KDP. Barnes & Noble Press works the same way; its free ISBN only applies to Barnes & Noble and BN.com. If you plan to publish anywhere beyond that one platform, or you want control over the imprint name attached to your book, use your own ISBN.

If you’re uploading to Barnes & Noble Press, note that they add the barcode themselves during the build process; remove any barcode image from your cover file first, or the upload may be rejected or produce a double barcode.

Directly from your own website. You can also sell EPUB or PDF files yourself, taking payment and emailing the file or providing a download link. You keep more of the money, but you handle delivery, customer service, and the ease of passing along files.

Fulfilment is different

This is the key practical difference from print. When you sell through a platform, it handles storage, delivery, and payment and takes a fee or royalty share on each sale. There’s no stock to hold, nothing to pack, and no postage.

That means much of the next section, being your own supplier, dealing with bookshops, trade discounts, applies to your printed edition rather than your e-book. If you’re publishing electronically only, you can read Step 5 lightly and focus on pricing in Step 6.

Step 5: How people actually buy your printed book

This is the question we’re asked most often, and the answer surprises people.

Who supplies your books?

“Independent Publishing Network” appears as the publisher of record against your ISBN, but that’s an administrative label. We issue ISBNs, barcodes and registration: we don’t hold stock, take orders, or distribute books. Nor does your printer, unless you’ve specifically arranged it.

So someone has to be the supplier — the person a bookshop contacts when it wants copies. You have two options.

Supply the books yourself. Every order comes to you: you invoice, you pack, you post. You keep the full amount, less any trade discount, and you deal directly with shops and readers. For a locally printed first book, this is the usual route, and it’s why the contact details in your front matter matter so much.

Appoint a distributor. They hold stock, take the orders and fulfil them. They’ll take a cut, but you stop being a warehouse. This tends to make sense once volumes outgrow a spare room and a Post Office queue.

Whichever you choose gets recorded in two places. The first is our registration form, which asks who the supplier is; that’s the contact detail sent out to bookshops through Nielsen, so it’s worth deciding before you register rather than after. The second is your book’s front matter, which needs to name whoever takes the orders, you or your distributor.

Settle this before the book goes to print. Once it’s printed, the page is fixed, and changing the distributor later means either a reprint or a book that sends readers to the wrong place.

Front matter templates for both cases.

Selling directly to readers

For most locally printed books, this is where the majority of sales happen: at events, talks, local markets, through your own website or social media, and by word of mouth. A reader contacts you, pays you, and you send them a copy. You keep the full cover price.

The practical things to sort out are a way to take payment (a simple website shop, PayPal, or bank transfer for small volumes), padded envelopes, and a trip to the Post Office. Weigh a packed copy before you set your postage rates.

Selling through bookshops and libraries

This is what your Nielsen registration is for.

Once we register your title, your book’s details are distributed through Nielsen’s data products to UK bookshops, libraries, distributors and their international customers. That means if a customer walks into a bookshop and asks for your book by title or ISBN, it comes up in the shop’s system, and staff can see that it exists and how to order it. If bookshops don’t know your book exists, they can’t order it; registration is what closes that gap.

Next, the shop contacts whoever is listed as the supplier.

In practice, though, don’t wait for the phone to ring. For a locally printed first book, bookshop sales almost always start with you walking into independent shops with copies in a bag and asking whether they’d stock it. When you do, expect two things to come up:

  • Trade discount. Shops buy at a discount off your cover price. Around 35% is a common starting point for direct supply to an independent; wholesalers and chains expect more. Factor this into your price from the beginning (see Step 6).
  • Sale or return. Many independents will take stock on consignment: they display it, pay you for what sells, and return the rest. This is normal. Agree the terms in writing and provide an invoice or consignment note so both sides know where they stand.

What happens at the till

Worth understanding, because it catches authors out. The first time a retailer scans your barcode, your ISBN will appear on their point-of-sale screen without any book details. The retailer then manually enters the title, author, format, price, and reordering details into their own system and links them to your ISBN. From that point on, scanning the barcode correctly brings up your book.

Each retailer does this in their own system. That means they control the details and the price held against your ISBN, and they can change what they charge whenever they choose.

Listing your printed book online

You can list your printed book on Amazon and other online retailers using our ISBNs. When asked for the “Imprint”, “Publisher” or “Manufacturer’s name”, enter Independent Publishing Network, and enter your ISBN without hyphens. (For e-book listings, see Step 4.)

Note that registration on Nielsen means your book will usually be listed on Amazon automatically. If you specifically don’t want it to appear there, don’t register with Nielsen.

How to list your book on Amazon.

Step 6: How to set your price

There is a method to this, and it’s mostly arithmetic. Gut feel only comes in at the very last step.

1. Start with your unit print cost. Get quotes from your printer at the run sizes you’re realistically considering. This is your floor.

2. Build in the trade discount. This is the step new authors miss. If you ever want a bookshop to stock your book, your cover price has to survive giving away 35–50% of it. A £10 book supplied to a shop at 40% earns you £6, so if printing costs £4.50 a copy, you’re making £1.50. Price for the discount from the start; raising a cover price after publication is awkward and looks unprofessional.

3. Add postage and packing for direct sales, or decide to absorb it and advertise free delivery, but know what it’s costing you either way.

4. Check comparable books. Look up eight or ten titles in your genre with a similar page count, format, and production quality on Amazon and Waterstones. This tells you the range readers already expect to pay. Pricing well above it needs a justification; pricing well below it can read as low quality rather than good value.

5. Land inside that range at a price that clears your costs with a margin you’re happy with. If the numbers don’t work, the fix is usually a larger print run or a different printer, not a higher price than the market will bear.

One caveat: whatever you print on the cover is a recommended retail price. As explained above, retailers enter their own prices into their systems and can charge whatever they like.

Pricing an e-book

The arithmetic is simpler, because there’s no unit cost and no trade discount, but the market is tighter. Two things to work out:

  • The platform’s cut. Retailers pay a royalty percentage rather than buying stock from you, and that percentage often depends on where you set your price. Some platforms pay a substantially higher rate within a particular price band, which makes the band worth knowing before you decide. Check the current terms on whichever platform you’re using.
  • What comparable e-books cost. Readers expect digital editions to be noticeably cheaper than print, and self-published fiction in particular sits at prices that will look low if you’ve only ever looked at paperbacks. Check what similar titles in your genre actually charge.

If you’re publishing both formats, price them as a pair. A print edition at £9.99 with an e-book at £3.99 is a normal-looking spread; pricing them close together tends to make neither seem like the sensible choice.

Step 7: Legal deposit

You must send one copy of your printed book to the British Library within one month of publication. This is a legal requirement for all UK publications, whether or not they have an ISBN.

Legal deposit is not limited to print. E-books and other electronic publications are covered too, but the process differs: instead of posting a copy, you send a zipped archive containing the publication file and an ONIX metadata file, both named after the ISBN. ONIX is the industry-standard format for book metadata. Publishing software can usually export it; if yours can’t, we can create one for you for £5.

In addition, five other legal deposit libraries are entitled to free copies upon request within 12 months of publication. Requests come from the Agency for Legal Deposit Libraries (ALDL) in Edinburgh, and reach you through us. We’ll forward any request by email. These copies go to a different address.

Different requirements apply if you’re publishing in Northern Ireland.

Legal deposit addresses and full details.

In summary

  1. Buy an ISBN package: number, Nielsen registration, and a barcode image if the book is physical
  2. Add the barcode to your back cover and the ISBN to your front matter
  3. Get the book printed, starting with a modest run
  4. If you’re publishing an e-book, get a second ISBN for it and choose your platform
  5. Sell direct to readers, and approach bookshops with trade terms in mind
  6. Price from your print cost upwards, allowing for trade discount
  7. Send your legal deposit copy to the British Library (and/or ALDL)

Still not sure about something? Read our FAQs or get in touch; we’re happy to help.

Become a member and get your ISBN.