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Call it "How this BusinessWeek writer made $500k with one bubble" — Sarah Lacy (pictured right), co-writer of the BusinessWeek cover story that pumped up boys of the bubble and gave Digg founder Kevin Rose a made-up valuation of $60 million, scored a lucrative book deal on the same subject.

The BW story scandalized those afraid of the ludicrous business valuations that Silicon Valley mostly avoided after the dot-com bomb, and it sent Digg's management scrambling to explain that no, they didn't tell Lacy and co-writer Jessi Hempel that their company was worth $200 million, and no, they really aren't a bubble company.

Lacy shies away from the same accusation — Her book is "not a bubble book," she tells me, and she denies rumors that Penguin, her publisher, advanced her $500k (another ludicrous fake valuation, of course).

Lacy says she'll cover "the rise of Web 2.0 out of the bust, following key characters who are/were notable
stakeholders in both, with analysis on what is the same and what's different." Not a promising premise — sounds like every other story in Business 2.0, Forbes, and Fast Company — but just how bad (or, who knows, good) the book turns out depends on which "key characters" Lacy decides to follow. (It's a safe bet her friends at web startup Yelp — pictured left — will make the cut.)

Earlier, on Lacy's BW story: Why BusinessWeek said Kevin Rose is worth $60 million [Valleywag]