BISAC - Book Industry Standards and Communications

Q. Why is BISAC Coding Important to a Muslim Book Publisher and Retailer?

A. Muslim publishing in the USA is growing steadily.
----Muslim publishers outside the USA often want to distribute their books to American markets.
----BISAC Subject Heading and Merchandising Themes lists and provides guidance to the implementation and use of the lists by publishers, retailers, and other interested parties.
----Book Industry standards categorize books based on Subject Heading and topical content. The Subject Heading applied to a book can determine where the work is shelved in a brick and mortar store or the genres under which it can be searched in an internal database. .

Q. How does this work - BISAC coding of books?

A. Before a book is published, a publisher assigns an ISBN (identifies the publisher and book by a numbering system) purchased from Bowker. Bowker maintains a database and print catalog of published books. When the publisher enters information into the “Books In Print” database (BIP), the publisher fills in a form that allows the publisher to describe the book and to provide author and publisher information. A key piece of information is the publisher’s designation of BISAC coding for the book.

The publisher chooses from a list of Main subjects. Most of the Main Subjects apply to non-fiction books. If the book is fiction, the publisher selects Fiction for Adult reading level books and Juvenile Fiction for all other reading levels/appropriateness of content/topics.

After choosing the Fiction/Juvenile Fiction Main Subject the publisher than can select from lists of topics such as Adventure, Mystery, Historical, etc. The publisher may choose two to three topics to describe the book.

If you are a Christian publisher or a Jewish publisher you have the additional choice of identifying your religion as a topic category.
Examples: Adult Fiction/Christianity/Adventure
Juvenile Fiction/Christianity/Mystery

If you are a Muslim publisher you don’t have this choice because there aren’t BISAC codes for Adult Fiction/Islam/ topic or Juvenile Fiction/Islam/topic. WHY?

It could be that no Muslim publisher ever requested inclusion of BISAC codes for Islamic Fiction. This would not be surprising given the limited number of westernized Muslim publishers willing to publish Islamic Fiction in English and the limited number of Muslim Retailers listing and selling the Islamic Fiction.

Non-Fiction books with Islamic content do have BISAC topic Codes within the Religion Main Subject list. Example: Religion/Islam/topic.

Q. I still don’t see why it is important for Muslim publishing to have BISAC codes to choose from that identify books with “Islam.”

A. Muslim authors who write Islamic fiction and their publishers want their books to be labeled with “Islam” because they want wholesalers, retailers, distributors to include their books in databases and catalogs. They want their books to be appropriately placed on book shelves in retail stores and also appropriately listed within the web pages of online retailers. This will help Muslim readers easily locate Islamic Fiction books written by Muslims which do not have harm content.

Right now, with the lack of BISAC codes for Islamic Fiction it appears to both the secular book industry and the Muslim book industry that Muslims do not write fiction/Islamic Fiction literature.

Q. What about books written by Muslims that don’t have anything in the content about Muslims or Islam? How are they coded in the current BISAC Code system?

A. Publishers of this kind of fiction are almost always secular (non-Muslim) and current BISAC codes apply.

Some Muslim authors are writing fiction to appeal to non-Muslims. The books have Muslim characters, but the focus of the story is not educational, nor is the content being attributed to an Islamic practice or belief. This kind of Muslim-authored Fiction is generally published by a secular publisher and the primary markets for distribution and promotion are to non-Muslims.

Although this type of Muslim-authored fiction doesn’t generally have Harm Content, they would not be categorized in BISAC Coding under “Islam”. The secular publishers and most often the authors do not want their books listed as religious in databases and print catalogs. Publishers would use the existing secular Major Subjects and their lists of topics to describe the book.

Q. Does the BISAC Coding let a reader know if a book has harm content?

A. No. The BISAC Coding system is designed to categorize the book. There are also Codes which allow the publisher to designate an age level to the book.

Q. Wouldn’t having an Islam BISAC code in Adult and Juvenile Fiction Main Subjects help Muslims identify Islamic Fiction? How can Islam be added to the BISAC Coding system?

A. Muslim Writers Publishing and Islamic Writers Alliance have partnered together to request that the BISAC Committee add “Islam” category/topic codes to the BISAC Coding system. The designation of Islam as a subcategory of Fiction (Adult and Juvenile) should help identify fiction books without harm content, but it is not failsafe. This is why the IslamicFictionBooks website has been created: to provide a place to list Islamic Fiction which has been screened for not having Harmful Content.