If you are purchasing an ISBN number from BookBaby, it will not be assigned until after you have submitted your order. That means you must use a placeholder on your copyright page for our team to fill in for you. Please leave the placeholder like this:
ISBN: XXXXXXXXXXXXX
If you do it in that manner, it will be the correct length (13 digits) and will give us each numerical digit so that we do not end up with a subset missing a character. Providing the correct number of digits will also give you an accurate idea of the text alignment in case you are center aligning your copyright page.
If your text has been converted to outlines or rasterized, we will not be able to edit the placeholder for you. Our prepress department will notify you, and will give you the opportunity to provide a new manuscript file with embedded text so that we can add the ISBN number for you.
Putting the placeholder anywhere other than your copyright page is not guaranteed to be spotted during our check.