PIPPA MIDDLETON HAS reportedly signed a six-figure deal to write a book about how to be the perfect party hostess.
It is reported that the younger sister of the Duchess of Cambridge, who gained worldwide fame at the Royal wedding earlier this year, will bank £400,000 to write the book for the publisher Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin Books.
A spokesperson for Michael Joseph could not immediately be reached for comment.
However, the Mail reports that the deal was brokered last week after a bidding war and that now it has been agreed Pippa has told friends she will be writing the book herself with each chapter to feature an “amusing anecdote”.
The 28-year-old’s experience in the party-planning industry comes from her work with a London-based events company Table Talk whilst she also writes for The Party Times, an online party magazine.
The Telegraph cites industry sources in reporting that the book will launch after the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee next year so as Middleton is not seen to be cashing in on her royal connections. The book will launch in late autumn, just in time for Christmas.
But not everyone seems massively pleased with Middleton’s writing commanding such a huge advance.
On the Guardian website, the former editor of The Bookseller Alison Flood notes that while it’s good to see publishers paying big sums in advances during austere times it’s a shame they are paying such money for this particular book.
India Knight, herself an author with Penguin, says that while she has no problem with size of the advance: “It’s the arse-basis that annoys me,” referring to the considerable fuss over Middleton’s bum which gained worldwide notoriety after the dress she wore at the Royal wedding.
