diff --git a/src/libprs500/ebooks/metadata/__init__.py b/src/libprs500/ebooks/metadata/__init__.py
index 7f11404df4..2d00fec9db 100644
--- a/src/libprs500/ebooks/metadata/__init__.py
+++ b/src/libprs500/ebooks/metadata/__init__.py
@@ -62,14 +62,14 @@ class MetaInformation(object):
         self.tags         = [] 
         
     def __str__(self):
-        ans = ''
-        ans += 'Title    : ' + unicode(self.title) + '\n'
-        ans += 'Author   : ' + (', '.join(self.authors) if self.authors is not None else 'None')
-        ans += ((' (' + self.author_sort + ')') if self.author_sort else '') + '\n'
-        ans += 'Publisher: '+ unicode(self.publisher) + '\n' 
-        ans += 'Category : ' + unicode(self.category) + '\n'
-        ans += 'Comments : ' + unicode(self.comments) + '\n'
-        ans += 'ISBN     : '     + unicode(self.isbn) + '\n'
+        ans = u''
+        ans += u'Title    : ' + unicode(self.title) + u'\n'
+        ans += u'Author   : ' + (', '.join(self.authors) if self.authors is not None else u'None')
+        ans += ((' (' + self.author_sort + ')') if self.author_sort else '') + u'\n'
+        ans += u'Publisher: '+ unicode(self.publisher) + u'\n' 
+        ans += u'Category : ' + unicode(self.category) + u'\n'
+        ans += u'Comments : ' + unicode(self.comments) + u'\n'
+        ans += u'ISBN     : '     + unicode(self.isbn) + u'\n'
         return ans.strip()
     
     def __nonzero__(self):
diff --git a/src/libprs500/ebooks/metadata/isbndb.py b/src/libprs500/ebooks/metadata/isbndb.py
index 4415e10be2..f9d7db3d33 100644
--- a/src/libprs500/ebooks/metadata/isbndb.py
+++ b/src/libprs500/ebooks/metadata/isbndb.py
@@ -91,7 +91,9 @@ def build_combined(base_url, opts):
     if len(query) == 0:
         raise ISBNDBError('You must specify at least one of --author, --title or --publisher')
     
-    query = re.sub(r'\s+', '+', query)  
+    query = re.sub(r'\s+', '+', query)
+    if isinstance(query, unicode):
+        query = query.encode('utf-8')
     return base_url+'index1=combined&value1='+quote(query, '+')    
 
 
@@ -146,7 +148,7 @@ def main(args=sys.argv):
         return 1
     
     for book in create_books(opts, args):
-        print book
+        print unicode(book)
             
     return 0