And why could Elizabeth Spiers afford to walk away from Laurel Touby's boa'd embrace? Because she has herself a book deal.

Spiers's first novel was purchased last week by Geoff Kloske at Simon & Schuster — the man who brought you, among other things, the (formal) fiction debut of Stephen Glass. No word yet on dollar figure, but an editor at a rival house confirms the deal and reports that Spiers's agent, the bloggilicious Kate Lee, offered the book widely and was looking for "a good offer" but not necessarily one as rich as Dana Vachon's.

We send a hearty mazel tov to Gawker 1.0, and also to Kloske, for landing her. And we hope the advance is huge, mostly because we're very much in favor of Gawker/Mediabistro editors getting fat book deals.

[Disclosure: Kloske once bought us some beers.]

Earlier:
 Who'd Have Thunk It: Elizabeth Spiers to Leave the 'Bistro
Elizabeth Spiers Pimps Her Book
Colon-Busting Blogger Book Deals