2 Answers2025-07-21
I simply search for the book title + 'ISBN' on Google or DuckDuckGo and half the time the number is listed in the results snippet. ISBNs for books are also listed in Amazon book listings under the 'Product Details' section at the bottom of the page. Simple enough!
3 Answers2025-07-21
I heavily use ISBN searches but books that are out of print require a lot of thinking. Apart from 'UsedBookCentral' and 'Biblio' that allow you to search by ISBN on used books websites, on the forums like Reddit’s r/BookCollecting there are many databases of used books as well as contacts of private sellers.
Physical auctions can be a goldmine. Most major auction houses, including Heritage Auctions, list the ISBN number for books in their printed catalogs. I was surprised at the number of rare titles that appeared in their sales. In fact, I was able to pick up a first edition of the paperback edition of Dune for a relatively low price.
For non-English language books, ISBN searches are not as reliable. In the past, BookDepository (before it closed) and the global site for Kinokuniya were fantastic resources. Nowadays, I often find what I’m looking for on eBay (internationally) or through rare book vendors listed on Alibaba. It’s hard work, but an absolute thrill to hold a long out of print book in your hands after all that searching.
4 Answers2026-07-13
Scan the book using the Google Books app. By taking a photo of the barcode on the back of the book using your phone, you should be able to search for the exact edition. It’s often quicker than manually entering the book. If the Google Books app fails to find the book, I use BookFinder dot com to search for books by their ISBN. BookFinder aggregate second-hand stock from hundreds of retailers worldwide, providing a good indication of what you actually have.
8 Answers2025-08-11
For people who like to buy used books, ISBNs are great. They can search for a specific out of print edition of a book. Without the ISBN, you are left to the seller’s description of a used book. Sometimes the description is even accurate enough for the buyer to purchase the book based on the description. But more often than not, the description is not accurate enough for the buyer’s needs. With an ISBN number, you can find the exact book you are looking for, such as the 1978 Ballantine paperback edition with the cover art that you like.
13 Answers2025-08-13
Short answer: Yes. This is especially true when you're selling directly to your audience (like at events, from your own website, from your own eBay/Esty store, etc.). You can buy an ISBN and put your book up for sale on gumroad.com and elsewhere, without ever using it for distribution. We actually recommend avoiding the use of ISBNs when you're self-publishing until you know whether or not you're going to need them for wider distribution. They're not an immediate barrier to entry for most indie authors and small press publishers. But, in order to get your books into bigger retail stores and into libraries, you're going to need an ISBN. It's the universal product code for books, and it's primarily used for distribution to these sorts of places (BN, expanded Amazon distribution, library catalogs, etc.).
2 Answers2025-05-21
A search for rare books online can take a lot of time, especially if you know where to look. So I thought it would be a good idea to list some of the search spots I use regularly. There’s Project Gutenberg and the Internet Archive, which offer lots of free rare books. The Open Library allows you to borrow rare books online in the form of e-books. Digitized versions of rare books from university libraries like the Harvard University Library Digital Collections can also be accessed online for free. In addition, there are many online forums like the community of the rare books forum on Reddit (r/rarebooks), where one can find tips and links to search spots.
3 Answers2025-08-17
Free services for book narration? Here are a few online services that I have come across recently. The best service I have found so far is probably Librivox which appears to be a love letter to public domain literature in audio format. I have been listening to ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ on Librivox for weeks now. Also worth a look is the free Libby app which connects to your local library and provides access to a large collection of audiobooks which are read professionally by a number of actors although not all of them are free.
TikTok is also an amazing resource for finding users who create short little clips of book readings. Sometimes they even read the whole book, but other times they just do little snippets and it’s a great way to discover new books. I’ve also been loving the podcast ‘LeVar Burton Reads’ where he reads and analyzes short stories, however they aren’t full length books. The world of free book narrations is vast and can be found in hidden corners of the internet by things like amateur YouTube channels and even subreddits that only post free resources for book narration.
3 Answers2025-06-04
I have luck finding free book annotations by searching a mix of sources. I often refer to SparkNotes for summaries and themes of a book, but I prefer LitCharts for more in-depth analysis of a work. Occasionally, they even offer a free preview that is impressively in-depth for being free.
For a more community-driven resource, I check out literature-focused Discord servers. Often there are dedicated channels for annotating books and other resources where many perspectives are shared.
For accessing free book annotations online, also check a library’s website. Increasingly, public libraries provide free digital books, and even study guides to books, all for free with a library card. In some cases, they even have annotated versions of the book as an e-book which you can download and read with your library card via services like OverDrive.
12 Answers2025-08-11
I have mentioned used bookstores on here before, but for online/free the Internet Archive’s Open Library is a great digital lending library of books, which you can borrow in digital format for a set time period. It has a decent selection of finance books, particularly older ones and seminal works. You do need to create an account which is free and the Open Library is a non-profit project. In addition to these used bookstores, corporate annual reports and even individual shareholder letters can be very valuable. For instance the letters from Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway are available on the Berkshire website for free every year, and are an amazing insight into the world of investment and business. In raw and unstructured form they are even more insightful than 99% of the finance books available today.
5 Answers2025-07-16
Joining specific Discord servers for genres or authors of interest can also be really useful. I know of servers for classic sci-fi, for horror, and for academic philosophy. People share links and discuss different editions of a book in dedicated channels. As people are actively searching for the same thing, it can become a collaborative hunt in real time. Someone posts that they are searching for the original magazine version of a particular story and within minutes there are links to scans provided by several members. Not only does joining these communities make the hunt less lonely, but also you can find out about books of interest that you would have otherwise never known about from other people with immense knowledge on the subject.