Free ISBN barcode
for your book cover.

Everything you need to know about ISBN barcodes

What is a Bookland EAN-13 barcode?

The barcode on every printed book cover is a Bookland EAN-13, a special form of the EAN-13 (European Article Number-13) reserved for books. The first three digits (978 or 979) tell scanners "this is a book," and the remaining digits are derived from your ISBN-13 with a fresh check digit recalculated for the EAN format.

When IngramSpark, KDP Print, B&N Press, or your distributor scans your back cover, they're reading this barcode and matching it to the title and metadata you registered with your ISBN. If the barcode is unreadable or the digits don't match what's on file, your upload fails validation.

How to convert your ISBN to a barcode

1. Enter your full 13-digit ISBN above (with or without dashes, we'll strip them).
2. Optionally add a retail price (USD, CAD, GBP, EUR), this prints as a small EAN-5 supplement next to the main barcode.
3. Click Generate barcode.
4. Download the PNG. It's exported at 300 DPI on a white background, ready to drop into Canva, Affinity Publisher, Adobe InDesign, or your cover designer's working file.

Where the barcode goes on your cover

Place the barcode in the bottom-right corner of your back cover. IngramSpark, KDP Print, and B&N Press all require:

• At least 0.25" of clear space around all four sides, no text, art, or background patterns inside that quiet zone.
• White background under the bars, never print on a colored, gradient, or textured surface. Even a 5% screen tint kills scan reliability.
• Black bars only, colored or grayscale bars fail to scan in retail point-of-sale systems.
• Minimum size 1.5" wide × 1.02" tall at 100% scale. Larger is fine; never scale below 80%, undersized barcodes are the #1 cause of scan-failure rejections at IngramSpark.

One ISBN per format

Publishing the same book in paperback, hardcover, and ebook? You need three different ISBNs, one per format, and you'll generate a separate barcode for each. The barcode you produce here is tied to whichever ISBN you enter, so generate a fresh one for every format using the matching number.

Audiobooks usually need their own ISBN as well, though the requirement depends on the distributor (ACX, Findaway Voices, etc., check their specs).

Where to buy an ISBN

ISBNs are assigned by your country's national ISBN agency. The main ones:

• United States: Bowker (myidentifiers.com), $125 for one, $295 for a pack of 10. Buying 10 is the better deal as soon as you publish in more than one format.
• Canada, UK, Australia, most Commonwealth countries: National ISBN agencies issue them free through their national libraries.
• KDP-only authors: Amazon assigns a free ASIN that only works on Amazon. If you also want IngramSpark or bookstore distribution, you need a real ISBN.

The EAN-5 price supplement explained

If you add a price during generation, the barcode includes a small five-digit supplement printed to the right of the main bars. Brick-and-mortar retailers scan it at checkout so the register pulls the suggested retail price automatically. The first digit encodes the currency (9 = USD, 8 = CAD, 5 = GBP, 4 = EUR) and the next four digits are the price in dollars/pounds/euros.

Optional but recommended if you sell through physical retail. Skip it if you're online-only, Amazon and most e-commerce systems ignore the EAN-5 anyway.

Common scan-failure causes (and how to avoid them)

• Barcode too small. Stay above 1.5" wide × 1.02" tall.
• Background isn't white. Even a light tint behind the bars breaks scanning.
• JPEG compression artifacts. Repeatedly re-saving your cover as JPEG fuzzes the bar edges. Use PNG or PDF (lossless formats).
• Wrong ISBN entered. Always double-check the digits match what you registered, a single transposed number means the wrong title in distributor databases.
• Quiet zone violated. Make sure the 0.25" margin around the barcode is empty, no text, no decoration, no background art.