How much would you spend on a joke stocking-filler? £5 £10 £15? Not much more than that, surely, the ways things are at present. This vacuous question was prompted by yesterday’s astonishing news that Penguin has apparently paid Pippa Middleton a £400,000 advance for a book on party giving, working title: How to be the Perfect Party Hostess.
The Guardian’s Alison Flood relates how there was a ‘fierce bidding war by some of Britain’s largest publishers’ over Middleton’s first book, with Random House overwhelmed by Penguin at the eleventh hour.
As Flood says, publishers obviously have faith in Middleton’s winning smile, so much faith in fact that they expect her to sell glossy tomes. The Bookseller reports that the books will be published next autumn in ‘high-production hardback, in the style of Nigella Lawson’. Behind that quote echoes the unmistakable sound of a TV pitch to coincide with the Christmas party season.
This may sound quite a safe bet for the publisher: Middleton’s an It Girl if you live in SW3 and read the Mail online, which many people do. But the promise of lucre has impaired someone’s eyes. The book is not yet written and has been sold on concept. Middleton has also vowed not to hire a ghost writer. £400,000… that’s quite a gamble to take on someone whose sole literary qualification is editing an online newsletter for the family business.
Then there is the more pressing matter of the ambitious target market, and the fateful Christmas stocking lurking offstage. A learned friend described the frenzied publisher’s mistake to me last night, ‘You have to be well-off to throw a fancy party, which means you’re probably 40-plus. If so, would you turn to 26-year-old, kittenish Pippa Middleton for advice?’ No, probably not. The niche market for entertaining and social etiquette in this country is synonymous with Debrett’s — who, incidentally, have just reprinted their classic, Golden Rules for Hosts and Hostesses — and household names, Delia, Nigella et al. Middleton has to say something new about ambient lighting, laying tables, and plating up lasagne. I doubt there is a ‘Sister to the Duchess of Cambridge’s Way to shell peas’; but if there is, then I’ll eat them as well as my words.
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