[hansoolo]

Hi Ben,

when I asked you, I already suspected that obtaining the data would be a real challenge. It’s actually unbelievable that you have to put in so much (manual) effort to get clean data—and then pay a lot of money for it, too. It’s a bit unfortunate.

I do have one more question: Shepherd.com seems to be specifically tailored for the American book market, right? Are you planning anything in the future to serve an international audience as well?

Since I’m from Germany, I looked into how things are here regarding book data. It seems like we might have it a bit easier when it comes to accessing book information. We have the VLB (https://vlb.de/en/), which provides book data—I’ll look into it more closely. The German National Library (probably similar to the Library of Congress) archives every book published in Germany! Their data might be quite useful too.

By the way, I didn’t realize it was so expensive to get an ISBN...

Wishing you continued success with Shepherd! I think it’s wonderful when someone pours so much passion into an idea—especially one focused on books!

[bwb]

It is frustrating, as this info should be free and accurate. Publishers only benefit if devs can play with it and build cool stuff. Google Books does have an API, but crazy rules, it can be used for private projects.

Ya, I am focused on the global English market, so USA, UK, Australia, Ireland, India, and English-speaking readers globally (a lot in Europe).

I would love to do other languages, but I just don't have the resources yet to handle that level of complexity. My hope is one day I can. I'd probably start with Spanish, French, or German.

Agreed, ISBN should be free! They are $$$.