Posted: August 13, 1999 at 14:05:31: by Irene Harrison
So the book is finally coming out. This was originally scheduled for November 1998, with many delays. Sigh, we are talking about TOR here. I'll wait until September before worrying about ordering a copy. Maybe if I order it from Waldenbooks, I'll get the purchase points.: The ISBN for this title ends with an "X", does anyone know if that means anything in particular? My guess is that the original use was INTENDED to be for when the company didn't know what the last digit of the ISBN number would be. It could have also have been intended to indicate that this title was going to use up 0 through 9 for the last digit in the book's various reprints. In actuallity, there are many books that have the last digit end in an "X" and there are very few books that really seem to have a consistant printing number in that last digit. I expect a publisher would really know, but I've always assumed that the last digit was a wild card. Sort of an extra, not really required, but nice to have around. Here's an example of ISBN numbers for
CROSSROADS OF TIME
1956, Ace D*164, 169p. $0.35(w/Mankind on the Run, Dickson)
1962, Ace#D-546, $0.35
1966, Ace#F-391, $0.40
1969, Ace#12311, $0.60
1974, Ace#12312, $1.25
1978, Ace#12313-9 $1.75 ISBN 0-441-12313-9
1980, Ace#12314-7 $1.95 ISBN 0-441-12314-7
1982, Ace#12315-5 $2.25 ISBN 0-441-12315-5
1985, Ace#12316-3 $2.50 ISBN 0-441-12316-3 Notice that even when Ace went to consecutive number, that last digit seems to bounce around. I don't know why either.
|
