Longevity

Over my academic career, I was the author or co-author of books in my field. One where I was sole author is Advanced Management Accounting. The second edition came out in 1994. Somewhere around 1999, the US publisher no longer supported the title and the copyright was released to me. Later the same year, the UK arm of the same publisher contacted me and wanted me to sign a contract with them (assign the copyright to them) to print a soft-cover edition of the book. No changes. Just soft-cover. This came out in 2000.

Over the past 10 years, the book has sold in Europe, mostly in The Netherlands. It’s been pretty steady and I’ve gotten royalties (what I call “money falling from the sky”) every year.

Now, there seems to be a new interest in the US for the book. Mind you, it has an original copyright date of 1994. I have just received word from one accounting professor that he is adopting the book for a fall class of 15 graduate students. I have another inquiry just this past week from another professor for a graduate class. The book is available through Amazon:

Given the book is not tied at all to financial accounting, auditing, or tax (whose rules and regulations change more often than the Sex in the City women’s garments), the only way it would be out of date is if practice and theory in the field of management accounting has gone beyond what I posited and wrote about over 16 years ago. Guess my work has been durable. My son says I was ahead of the curve and they’re just catching up with me. Whatever is happening, it makes me happy. Is there a poem in all this?