Like all the best parties, everything's got a bit last minute for Pippa Middleton.
So the cupcake recipes are being given a final once-over, the directions for frosting the cake are nearing completion, and the best way to pack a party favor is being finalized.
For P-Middy is in a frantic race against time to get her party planning book finished in the next few weeks so that it can be on bookstore shelves for its October 25th launch date.
Pip is "in the middle of writing" the book, according to her publishers, and other publishing sources say she is under pressure to deliver the manuscript by early June.
However reports that Pippa is is struggling to complete the book, entitled 'Celebrate!', and has employed the services of a ghost writer to help her finish the project are inaccurate, a spokesman said.
"She is absolutely writing the book herself," a Penguin flack told The Royalist, "So it's nice to shout about it."
Pippa received a $600,000 advance for the worldwide rights to the book after she and her derriere rocketed to fame at her sister's wedding.
Although the publishers conceded today that Pippa is still in the process of writing the book, they are adamant that there is no question of it being delayed. Publishing sources said they expected the final manuscript to be delivered by early June, which is a bit tight for October publication, especially as the book is expected to be heavily illustrated, but far from impossible for a major publisher to achieve. Shifting the publication date would be a much greater headache for the publishers now, as catalogs, promotions and window space will all already have been booked, and a delay in publication can cause booksellers to 'lose confidence' in book (as writers are often reminded).
A delay in this book would be particularly serious, as it would be pounced on by the global media as evidence the project was faltering.
Pippa has taken a leave of absence from London Party Planning firm Table Talk (in reality she is unlikely to return) to get the book finished, and she has even contemplated relocating temporarily to New York to finish writing the book and concentrate on promoting it and raising her profile in the US (in a good way, not a toy gun-toting way).
Even if the content is not groundbreaking (although we actually rather like this suggestion from from her blog, Party Times: “Collect and clean chicken wishbones, spray them silver and use each to pinch together a white hem-stitch napkin”) the book is absolutely certain to be a massive media event on both sides of the Atlantic.
Major US broadcasters such as Oprah, Barbara Walters and NBC are all competing for the exclusive first interview with the future Queen's sister, but a big TV deal in the U.S. would inevitably create yet more interest in Pippa, and would appear to be in conflict with her recent complaints about the level to which her privacy has been invaded by dozens of freelance paparazzi camped outside her house.
Pippa’s lawyers have in recent months sent letters to a half-dozen photographic agencies that syndicate the pictures worldwide on behalf of paparazzi photographers, warning them that their behavior constituted harassment.
The letter described her “serious distress and anxiety” and suggested that her lawyers had themselves been collating photographic evidence against the photographers concerned. “It is extremely intimidating to our client to have to face a group of unknown men outside her home and office who pursue her both day and night,” the letter read.
Of course, Royal publishing efforts have not always been unilaterally successful events. One thinks here, particularly, of Fergie's series of children's books about a helicopter called Budgie.
Pippa and her people will be hoping her publishing career gravitates in a very different direction.