Britney Spears: Novelist

British publisher Boxtree has paid about $720,000 for the rights to a novel penned by U.S. pop sensation Britney Spears and her mother Lynne, the Express reported on Thursday.

The novel would be called A Mother's Gift, the paper said.

“The manuscript is finished and will come out here and in America in May,” a Boxtree spokeswoman was quoted as saying. “I think it will be sweet. It's the kind of novel that mothers will buy for their teenager daughters or Britney's fans will lap up.”

The book, about a teenage girl who wants to be a star, was snapped up in the United States by publishing giant Random House in December. It reportedly paid $1 million for a two-book deal.

It is not the singer's first foray into the literary world. Spears's autobiography Heart to Heart, written when she was 18, sold more than 150,000 copies and made the best-seller lists.

Spears, whose last album Oops!...I Did It Again has sold eight million copies, has turned her success as a pop singer into a multi-million dollar corporate business.

Last month she signed a marketing deal with Pepsi to promote the company's soft drink. Terms of the contract were not disclosed, but were reported to rank alongside deals struck by other popular icons including golfer Tiger Woods and tennis star Venus Williams.

Woods is reportedly raking in $100 million over five years to promote Nike sports apparel and Williams has signed a five-year contract with Reebok for a reported $40 million.

Spears has also signed to appear in her first feature film. She will play a straight-laced high school student who enters a music competition with some friends.

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