Maybe that last encore except from Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs, a Parody was one too many. It's early, sure, but the book ranks way down at No. 1,432 on Amazon's bestseller list. Lesson? Fake Steve needs to send Moshe up to Seattle to have a chat with Jeff Bezos. [Amazon.com]

Author Dan Lyons saw our excerpts from Options, his fictional novel as Fake Steve Jobs, and alerted his publisher. A nice young man from Sub Rights (whatever that is) rang my cellphone and, after checking out our posts, had one word: "Awesome." After the jump, a bonus three-fer.

One last excerpt from Options, the fictional novel by Fake Steve Jobs poser Dan Lyons.

Another excerpt from Options, the fictional novel by Fake Steve Jobs poser Dan Lyons.

Another excerpt from Options, the fictional novel by Fake Steve Jobs poser Dan Lyons.

Another excerpt from Options, the fictional novel by Fake Steve Jobs poser Dan Lyons.

Options, the fictional novel by Fake Steve Jobs author Dan Lyons, is out already if you know where to look. To help you blow off Friday I'll post the best passages as I hit them. The novel, spun out from Lyons's insanely great Secret Diary of Steve Jobs blog, tells Steve's side of the stock options backdating scandal. Here's the first of our excerpts:

For the record, j'adore le Peter Kafka, managing editor of Silicon Alley Insider, the New York-based tech blog from disgraced stock analyst Henry Blodget. But seriously, girlfriend needs to loosen up. First of all, last time I was in town, the former Forbes writer totally ditched a little cocktail hour I threw in an East Village bar. Now, he freely admits to missing out the drunken, gossip-laden "debauchery" at a party thrown by TiVo and RealNetworks. I wasn't even there, and I got a story out of the party. I hear Blodget is a taskmaster. Hank, baby, for your readers' sakes: Let this guy roll into the office a little later. (Photo of Kafka by Glen Davis)

Forbes columnist James Brady's review of Times columnist Maureen Dowd's review of Camelot-era historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s terrible-sounding diaries IS A LITTLE BIT OF HEAVEN. The MoDo review is basically the longest blog post ever published in the Times, and Brady's LiveJournalling response is superb: "She drops in a wonderful reference to the fact in his later years he was 'perennially broke' and didn't even have a savings account. Gosh, just like most of us. Though whenever I saw Arthur out on the town (usually with his very tall, attractive and awfully pleasant wife Alexandra), he was impeccably (if tweed-ily) dressed and seemed to have cab fare." Yes. Broke, just like most of you! Anyway, adorable! I want to crawl inside this glimmering fantasy tunnel that these guys have dug into a mountain of non sequiturs and just live there all the time!

A few weeks ago, Forbes editor Dan Lyons, writing as Fake Steve Jobs, wrote a devastating analysis of the One Laptop Per Child project. On Tuesday, Wayan Vota, a blogger who follows the OLPC project, responded in essence, that while he agreed with Fake Steve, he still agreed with the project's aims. That would have been the end of it, except for a comment left on his post by "Fake Steve Jobs." The problem? Lyons didn't leave that comment. Vota compared the IP address that left the comment to others that he'd received and tracked it back to the Racepoint Group, the PR firm that reps OLPC. The commenter has since apologized, but the damage is done. To Kyle Austin, soon-to-be-fired flunky at Racepoint Group we say: great spin control. Proof after the jump.

From the (catty!) mailbag: "Fox Business Channel just hired Liz MacDonald, who was a highly respected journo for the Wall Street Journal and then Forbes mag. For past several years she's spent most of her time climbing over people in an effort to get in front of the camera." Meouch! Hey, she's sort of got that Tina Fey thing going on.

Are the Forbes family and Bono's Elevation Partners looking to cash out on Forbes? [NYP]

No, make that just plain writing for dollars. Fake Steve Jobs has a day job? Why, yes. Dan Lyons, the Forbes editor who pens the faux-Apple CEO blog, has chucked his pajamas, donned a suit and tie, and filed a story for the magazine's website. How does he find the time, with all that blogging? The subject: SCO, the software company which filed for bankruptcy as a series of its anti-Linux lawsuits fell apart. [Forbes]

Money's so tight at Forbes that the publishing company had to sell of its two corporate airplanes. That Bono runs a tight ship! If you're looking to pick up a Faberge egg on the cheap, you might want to keep your ear to the ground: We wouldn't be surprised if they offload a few from Steve Forbe's collection sometime soon. [NYP]

AllThingsD's Kara Swisher, tired of playing ambush journalist with her handheld videocamera, tries her hand at pretending to be Dan Lyons, the fabulous Forbes fabulist behind "The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs." Sort of. Except here, she's Fake Jerry Yang, a faux version of Yahoo's CEO, not Fake Steve Jobs The best bit comes when Swisher imagines Yang's reaction to Brad Garlinghouse, the controversial Yahoo executive who called for major changes in what's now called "The Peanut Butter Memo."

Earlier this week, we conducted a thoroughly unscientific poll asking Valleywag readers how much Forbes should pay Dan Lyons, the senior editor recently revealed to be Fake Steve Jobs, to bring his faux-Apple-CEO show to the magazine's website. The answer? A solid majority said Forbes should pay Lyons at least $100,000, and the weighted average of the votes came in at $275,495. That's just a bit more than Lyons school chum and Lenovo marketing VP David Churbuck said the blog was worth, shortly before his pal was outed. The people have spoken, and for Lyons's sakes, one hopes his bosses will listen — but I can't help pointing out that that's a lot of cheddar for a blog long on cheese. The final results, after the jump.

Brad Stone, the ruggedly handsome Timesman who outed Fake Steve Jobs, explains how Apple drove Forbes editor Dan Lyons to starting the faux-Apple CEO blog. [New York Times Bits Blog]

Eric Eldon at VentureBeat reports that Forbes is buying social bookmarking site Clipmarks. Once again esteemed Forbes reporters get scooped on a story in their own backyard. [VentureBeat]

Since the two of them got sweaty and wrestled in prep school, Lenovo marketing executive David Churbuck has been a loyal pal to Forbes editor Dan Lyons. For months, Churbuck has been protecting Lyons's secret identity as Fake Steve Jobs. But now we're getting worried. Churbuck, you see, has gone on a fast — just like Fake Steve himself. Now, the public story is that he wants to "lose some weight" and "clear out the plumbing" (ewwww). But we suspect that this is the truth: Churbuck is fasting until the stingy bastards at Forbes give his buddy a big fat raise for selling out his popular blog, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs. Now, gentle readers, you have two lives to save, not one. Get Churbuck eating again, and put food on Lyons's table, by voting in our poll: How much should Forbes pay Lyons to be Fake Steve? You decide.

On air yesterday, CNBC anchor Melissa Francis told Dan Lyons, the Forbes editor recently revealed as Fake Steve Jobs, that he deserved a raise. Lyons nervously concurred. Nervously, because he still hasn't concluded fraught negotiations with his employer on how much Forbes will pay to bring his blog, The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, on board when Brad Stone of the New York Times outed him as the author. But no matter. "We've already established what you are, ma'am," I can imagine Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard telling Lyons. "Now we're just haggling over the price."