Supernova09 I have not purchased any ISBN numbers yet. Waiting till I get ready to do cover art, which is scheduled for the 14th. Things are expensive unless you buy 100 or more at a time. I have not looked at the information you posted in quite a while, some of the sites were confusing, but I have been researching quite a bit.

My plan is to focus on the digital download distribution via Barnes and Nobles and Amazon and use CreateSpace for a print on demand paperback. CreateSpace, Lulu and offer free ISBN numbers if you print through them, but it will list those companies as publisher of record even though they are not publishers, but manufacturers. If I use my own ISBN's then I am listed and it becomes basically a selling/transfer of rights if someone wants to spend $$ to mass market it.

I have not actually read of any instances where someone was turned down by a mass market publishing house because there was already an ISBN or a vanity style release of the book in circulation. I have read of the opposite. The boy who wrote the Eragon series was self published and sold the books out of supermarkets in his home town and area in Montana, when it was picked up by someone and they inked a deal to mass market it.

The friend who i'm partners with in my insurance business has written quite a bit, but never published. 9 novels and like 12 screenplays. However his experience is in my opinion very dated. Late 70's to 90's is when he tried and did not make it. He is encouraging me, but has a lot of 'you cant do this, you cant do that' stories about how the publishing world works that frankly I do not believe exists anymore.

Getting this book to print and for sale to the world is going to be easy. Marketing it so people will go look at it is going to be hard.

I would be grateful for any advice, or references where things have gone wrong, or right as I step into this world of publishing, marketing, and transitioning from an aspiring author to a real one.