Pippa Middleton Book Deal: ‘Celebrate’ Set For October Release

Pippa Middleton, who is currently caught in the crossfire of a faux-firearms scandal, will be a published author before year's end.

Celebrate, a party-planning book being published by Penguin imprint Michael Joseph, is set for an October release, according to a USA Today report.

Middleton already has her foot in the party-planning business. She reportedly writes for the blog The Party Times, which is part of her family's business, Party Pieces. Her publishing venture was widely speculated late last year, when she was reported to have signed a book deal worth £400,000. The book was reportedly scheduled to be published before Christmas of 2012, but well after Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee celebrations, which will take place in June.

She wanted to publish it next year, but it will be timed to come out after the Jubilee, a book industry source told the Telegraph.

The book update comes as Middleton is making worldwide headlines via Gungate. The Sun posted photos showing Middleton riding in a convertible in Paris on Saturday with three male French acquaintances. One of them pulled out what appeared to be a real gun -- a source has told the Daily Beast that it was fake -- and aimed it at a nearby photographer. The fellow passengers -- including Middleton, who could be seen smiling -- laughed off the joke, but French authorities (and the paps) did not think it was funny.

Pippa is a party girl, the Sun royal editor Duncan Larcombe told ABC. She mixes now in very high society and they don't come very higher than this group of French aristocratic sons.

Royal family followers have been speculating on whether Pippa might face charges, even if she was just a passenger and didn't aim the gun herself. It hasn't helped image-wise that she was spotted earlier at a lavish party in which the entertainment included dwarfs in costume.

But an anonymous source told the Daily Mirror that a police investigation probably won't take place.

We don't know the circumstances in which these photographs were taken, the source reportedly told the Daily Mirror. But we cannot launch an inquiry based simply on photographs that have appeared online and in the press. There would need to be a witness but at the moment there is nothing.

We hope that's true, because Pippa might find herself banned from the Buckingham Palace if she were to taint the picture-perfect image of her sister, the Duchess of Cambridge.