The End of a Decade?

Ah, here we are in the last month of the last year of the decade. Well, technically we’re really not. We get to spend this delightful month (and the one next year) debating over which one is really “The end of a decade.”

I know that people, in general, start counting at one. And the “first year of our calendar” was “1″, not “0″. So techincally, the decades since the start of our calendar should be considered as “1…0″, in which case we’ve got another year to go before the end of this decade. The more pedantic among us will be happy to make this argument *every single time* we hit “9″ on the terminal year digit. And each and every time it’s a fascinating argument to endure.

However, I have a different perspective. A decade is a series of 10 years. It doesn’t have to be “the 10 years defined as 1..0″. A decade could be every 10 years that ends with a year ending in 5. And the way we refer to our decades (the 50′s, the 60′s, the 90′s) it really makes more sense to think that we’re talking about the tens digit number, not some specific mathematical distance from the beginning of the calendar.

So count it how you like. I think it’s reasonable to say that years that started with 195 were the 1950′s. I think it’s fine to celebrate the new millenium when we change 3 different numbers on the calendar, instead of the next one. Decades can be defined arbitrarily, so despite the fact that I love this debate topic *rolls eyes* I think we can move on to other more ground shaking discussions. You say to-may-to…

Tone Deaf Content Owners

Today I learned that Simon and Schuster plans to delay publishing of their e-books for months beyond the hardcover date. How clever! I’m sure they think that we, the consumers, will think this is just dandy and fork over $27 for their hardbound books and they’ll once again be rolling in cash.

I have some bad news for S&S, though. The world has changed. In this economy it is a brave, brave thing to assume that people will spend three times the amount they *want* to spend just to get something right now. We, the consumers, are getting better at stretching our dollars, and we’re unlikely to wholeheartedly accept this kind of reversal.

Let’s take as an example my family. Thanks to Netflix, we are very selective about the DVDs we buy to keep. Two years ago we probably bought over fifty DVDs. This year, we have chosen two phenomenal movies to keep in our house on DVD. We have similarly trimmed down our purchase of books. We use the library heavily (yes, one must be patient, but it’s free), and buy very few books – the ones we do buy are generally from the used book store.

Sometimes we do buy hardbound versions of new books about which we’re particularly excited. But what happens to those books after we read them? Our circle of friends tends to be excited about the same books, so one person buys the hard cover (on sale) and then we pass it around to 8 of our friends, so if we paid $24 for that book, the publisher gets $3 apiece for all those people reading the book. Half of those friends have Kindles. Sometimes the Kindle users (like me) get impatient with the waiting and buy the ebook version (heck, it’s only $10, and I really want to read this book *now*), netting the publisher a few extra dollars. Without the option to purchase an ebook version (which has other advantages for me) I’ll just wait my turn patiently and read the “real book.”

Let’s get real, S&S. Do you not understand that your shrinking hardback sales are because people don’t have as much money to buy your books? There’s a huge advantage for you in the ebook market – in most cases there is only one copy which is tied to a single device. The number of times I’ve shared my Kindle with other people so they could share a book I’d bought? Zero. You’re virtually guaranteed that my $10 matches exactly to one reader and no more. Why would you give this up? Forcing people to buy hardback versions of your book (or wait for the ebook) will not engender good will among your customers.

Besides, four months is long enough that I’m virtually guaranteed of getting it from the library. For free. Or finding it at a used book store. Or borrowing it from a friend.

So, good luck with your attempt at boosting your hardcover book sales. The music industry tried some similar strategies to limit digital delivery, and it didn’t work very well for them. Let me know how it works out for you, ok?