Monday, February 11, 2019

Publisher announces end-of-year results


2018 ended with a bang for Moonlight Mesa Associates, Inc.  Despite a summer of dismal sales (probably partially due to no one being in the office for three months) the year-end results pretty much surprised everyone. “November and December were terrific,” Moonlight Mesa publisher Becky Coffield said. "Almost unbelievable."

Coffield and staff were amazed to see the final tally on book sales. There were some genuine surprises and some disappointments too.

Moonlight Mesa’s top-selling book for 2018 was A Beginner’s Guide to Owning a Mule. This includes copies distributed by Ingram and sold by the publisher. If only Ingram sales are considered, however, Casey Tibbs – Born to Ride, squeezed out A Beginner’s Guide to Owning a Mule at the very tail end of the year, the Tibbs book outselling the mule book by three copies.


J.R. Sanders’ Some Gave All  came in third for sales by Ingram, and Lee Anderson’s Developing the Art of Equine Communication took fourth.

As for Kindle and other e-book sales, Casey Tibbs and Equine Communication had decent sales. Jere James outsold the other two titles, but Jere also has seven books available. Not all Moonlight Mesa titles are available as ebooks due to photos and file size.

The Old Folks in the Boat fared very poorly. “I knew it wouldn’t be a blockbuster,” Coffield said,
“but I am truly surprised at how poorly it did. I came within a hair of taking it out of circulation. Another year like this one, and I will.” In fact, Coffield canceled the scheduled book signing at the Seattle Boat Show.


Finally, Moonlight Mesa will no longer be carrying Paula Silici’s yummy western romance, A Way in the Wilderness.  The author has asked for her rights back, and due to Silici's precarious health situation, Coffield agreed to return the author’s rights – except for a 10% publisher right to any movie rights. "I really loved that book," Coffield said. "I read some parts three and four times!"


The plan now is to get Saving Our Oceans completed and uploaded for printing. “We’re close, but there’s still a lot of work to do. It doesn’t help that our beloved cover designer is migrating to Ecuador,” Coffield said. “He insists there will be internet there, but it just won’t be the same."

Next up will be Lee Anderson’s book, “The View from My Saddle”.  Coffield insists the book will be out in the fall.


1 comment:

  1. I just sent a publisher in The States a cover for James A. Graves' new thriller. Your concerns are imagined.
    A beloved cover artist.

    ReplyDelete