Meghan Markle has reappeared after disastrous New York City trip in order to pitch her book, “The Bench,” to children on one of her publisher’s YouTube channels. This could make sense if this happened in June as part of the marketing, but it’s now nearly November. It’s a likely sign that the book is a massive flop and not the roaring success that she would like the public to believe.

“The Bench” is marketed as a children’s book, but it actually evolved from a personal poem that Meghan wrote for Harry after the birth of their son, Archie. Most children’s authors have called out the book for being a vanity project for the former actress, and, as one commentator described it, “the book has been penned as a self-help manual for need parents rather than as a story to entertain small kids.”

Needless to say, the book didn’t perform very well, though it did make the New York Times bestsellers, most likely due to a handsome investment from Meghan’s publisher.

But none of that made the book successfully, so now the ex-royal is doing her best to shlep her merchandise and did a reading on one of Penguin Random House’s YouTube channels, Brightly Storytime.

Though it has reached a decent 65k views after 10 hours, the comments have been turned off of the video and the thumbs up and thumbs down ranking is neck and neck. 

It would be interesting to know if Meghan Markle was forced to do this by the publisher because the book is failing to sell. 

Why do this video now? The book has been out for months. While children’s books sometimes have a longer shelf life and sales are consistent overtime, it’s doubtful that this is the case for Meghan’s book. After all, it’s really a personal book that should have been shared between her and Harry. 

So, in order to try to increase the falling sales, the perhaps the publisher told Meghan, ‘Do this for us, or the rest of your contract may be in jeopardy.’

It’s just a theory, but Meghan does not seem engaged in this video, filmed somewhere in her garden in Montecito. Her eyes are kind of vacant, and it feels rather forced. She’s also talking incredibly quickly in the beginning, which would be difficult for children to follow. It’s clear, yet again, why she failed to have much success in Hollywood. 

The video moves from her outside in the garden, to the audio recording of “The Bench.” It’s nothing to write home about, and it has some incredibly sappy music playing in the background. The book is clearly trying to pull at the emotional heartstrings of needy and progressive parents, but it would easily put most children to sleep due to the uninspired reading that Meghan gives.

She ends the book by telling those “children” watching that they can find their own special bench or place. 

Well Meghan, not everyone lives in a multimillion-dollar mansion with a dedicated bench or anything of the sort that they can call their own. 

In fact, what comes to mind is the tragic case revealed this week about the three children left in their apartment alone with the corpse of one of their siblings for a year. They didn’t have a bench, they lived in a coffin.

Meghan is disconnected from reality. “The Bench” is just another example of how she has no framework for thinking of those outside the confines of her mansion, that really doubles as a self-imposed prison for her and her husband.

That’s why this book flopped, and while the publisher gave Meghan time to recover from childbirth, they are now demanding their pound of flesh. Her name may have garnered lots of publicity, but that didn’t translate into sales. At the end of the day, that’s all that matters.

It’s possible that the publisher is rethinking their partnership with her and the other projects she has in the pipeline. They know Harry’s book will probably be a best seller, but they’re now doubtful that Meghan Markle can hold her own.

After all, there are over 6,000 people who took time out of their day to either give the book a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Though the positive is currently outweighing the negative, it’s only by a small margin.

People generally don’t like Meghan Markle. She might call herself the Duchess of Sussex and continue acting like a royal, but she’s finding that her post-royal life is not the cakewalk she thought it would be.