Updated: Simon & Schuster to publish "Smarten Up!", book by Patton ’77, in spring 2014

Susan Patton's forthcoming book will be called "Smarten Up!: Words of Wisdom from the Princeton Mom" and is scheduled to be released in the spring of 2014, publisher Simon & Schuster announced Tuesday.The announcement followsindications from a Simon & Schuster publicistand Patton on Friday suggesting that an agreement between the two parties was expected early this week.

Patton wrote aletter to the editorof The Daily Princetonian on March 29 encouraging female students to find a husband on campus before graduation. The letter immediately gained national attention, and Pattonaddressed its contents at a lectureon campus on April 18.

"It's not scholarly; it's not elegant," Patton said of her book on Tuesday, noting that it will be written in the same maternal "voice" as her letter. "It's advice that I would give to my own children. It's common-sense wisdom."Patton added that she hopes the cover of her book will be orange and black in honor of the University.

The book will be published by Simon & Schuster imprint Gallery Books, which, according to its website, publishes "a wide array of must-read books," including Chelsea Handler's "Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea," Stephen Chbosky's "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" and Tim Gunn's "Fashion Bible."

Patton explained the book will include different sections speaking directly to female college students, recent female graduates and more mature women. She added that there might even be a section for young men.

“The message is very consistent," Patton said. "I want young people — especially young women — to be ever present of the necessity to pay as much attention to and focus on their personal happiness as they are planning for their professional success. They need to keep in mind that their window of opportunity to bear their own children is limited and that they will never have a better concentration of extraordinary men to choose from than they do when they’re at college.”

Patton said she hopes the book will continue the discussion that began as a result of her letter to the editor, noting that the book will contain a broader discussion that "goes beyond just talking about finding husbands on campus and getting married and planning to have babies."

Mitchell Ivers ’77, a senior editor at Simon & Schuster, negotiated the deal. Patton had told the 'Prince' in May that she would be working with Ivers, whom she described as an old friend and classmate, on a forthcoming book.

Ivers did not respond to requests for comment. Jennifer Robinson, a director of publicity at Gallery Books, declined to comment beyond the official release.

In the release, Gallery Books vice president and publisher Jennifer Bergstrom wrote that the book would contain "uncomfortable truths that many women don't want to hear."

Patton said that she has now written approximately two-thirds of the book and is averaging 1,000 words per day. The 65,000-word manuscript is due on September 2, she said.

Simon & Schuster ranks among the four largest English-language publishers and is a division of the CBS Corporation.