I’m Wm. Shakespeare, and I Would Love You to Buy My Work So That Danielle Steel Doesn’t Outsell Me
Our numbers are getting a little close for comfort
Greetings, savvy lover of high quality writing! Wm. Shakespeare here, asking you to please go on Amazon and purchase my Complete Works as soon as possible. Reason I ask, I just looked at my stats, and while I am still in a comfortable lead (as of today) with two billion books sold, the ridiculously prolific romance novelist Danielle Steel is moving up rapidly in total sales (over 800 million), and may possibly eclipse me one of these fine days. And we certainly can’t have that!
Ms. Steel is, in my unbiased view, quite my inferior as an author, and it would be galling in the extreme for Hamlet and Macbeth to take a back seat to her florid prose stylings. Even so lofty a source as Publisher’s Weekly has noted the “resounding lack of critical acclaim” for her 190+ tomes, whereas numerous people, important literary people, have acclaimed me and my oeuvre for SEVERAL centuries now. Ever heard of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, pray tell? William Hazlitt? All super-fans of mine. I believe George Bernard Shaw coined the term “bardolatry” to describe my leagues of admirers because he was just jealous.
If you’re already a fan, bless you. If instead you recall suffering through Mr. Engle’s “Introduction to Shakespeare” class in 1975, with his puzzling insistence on delivering every lecture in iambic pentameter (gracious, even I can’t do that!) I encourage you to give me another try. I guarantee you’ll be transported by the power of my undeniable genius.
I’m extremely versatile, covering every possible facet of the human existence. I’ve written riotous comedies. Did you enjoy Happy Gilmore and That’s My Boy? Then you’ll love Twelfth Night and All’s Well That Ends Well! If I were still in the land of the living, believe me, I’d be in talks with Adam Sandler’s agent, because, my friends, this Bard is a card. But I’ve also penned incredible, timeless love stories. Romeo and Juliet pops to my mind, and probably yours as well. You can have All That Glitters and Season of Passion. Do those hackneyed Steel potboilers feature doomed romances and tragic deaths? Well, probably, but mine are far, far more doomed and tragic!
I’m not terribly worried about my lackluster competition at this point, but just to be on the safe side…
If you get a chance to contact my publisher, I’d appreciate you suggesting some new cover illustrations, preferably with women staring moodily out of windows with tears glistening on their cheeks. I’d also be open to VERY slight title tweaking, to generate a bit of extra buzz: Othello’s Season of Passion, maybe, or All That Glitters About Richard the Third. But honestly, I shouldn’t need any sort of boost whatsoever. I’d like to see MS. DANIELLE’S numbers come the year 2400! The world will always admire the brilliance of my King Lear and The Merchant of Venice — can’t imagine the literati of the future saying the same about so-so tales like Second Chance and Sunset at St. Tropez!
Incidentally, only 20 of D.S.’s “books” have been made into movies. Whereas there have been at least 410 incarnations of my masterworks presented on the screen. 410! That, my friends, is telling. James Earl Jones. Dame Maggie Smith. Sir John Gielgud. Meryl Streep. They don’t perform in garbage. They have ALL performed in Shakespeare!
Who are the megastars in Steel films?
I’ll wait.
George Hamilton and Jane Seymour, you say? Whatever. Fine.
To sweeten the deal: you don’t actually have to READ my works, just purchase them. My titles immediately “smarten up” any bookshelf, whereas no one really displays To Love Again and Matters of the Heart, unless they want to confirm to the world that they consume only “beach reads,” even when nowhere near a beach.
In closing, I don’t ask for much, just to remain the world’s all-time bestselling author. With a slight assist from you, I can keep my position as GOAT, at the tippy-top of the literary heap. Or at least, keep outpacing so-called “writer” Danielle Steel. Whose work doesn’t hold a candle to mine. Ask Coleridge and Hazlitt! They’ll tell you. Pay no attention to Bernard Shaw, however. Probably a secret Steel aficionado.
Thanking you in advance for your visit to Amazon.com on my behalf, I remain
Yrs, Wm. S
