Rudy has not yet said "yes" or "no" - even though the price tag is now close to $1.7 million, sources say.

"I know negotiations are going on with Thomas Dunne [an imprint of St. Martin's Press], and there

is money on the table," says one insider.

Rudy's also said to have met with officials from Penguin Putnam - but President Phyllis Grann is said to not be a big Rudy fan, and that may dampen enthusiasm in any high-stakes bidding.

Giuliani is still mulling what the book will say, and he's dragging out selection of an agent. Joni Evans at William Morris, Chris Calhous at Sterling Lord, Mark Reiter at International Management Group and Edward "Jay" Acton have all been mentioned as possibilities. As of press time, it could not be learned who had snagged the Rudy prize.

In a press conference last week to unveil The Sporting News book "The Subway Series" - for which Rudy wrote the foreword - hizzoner ducked questions about the memoir.

"My other literary endeavors - when I make a decision, you'll know," the mayor offered.

Most St. Martin's exec - including Thomas Dunne, the editor-in-chief of the imprint that bears his name - had left for a long Thanksgiving and could not be reached.

*

Two weeks before the launch of the new Inside magazine, Powerful Media has axed two top business execs who helped launch the company's media and entertainment news Web site, Inside.com.

Andrew Gellman, director of business development, and Richard Skeen - a former ad executive from Conde Nast's GQ who was sales director for Inside.com - are both out in a pre-Thanksgiving shake-up.

Skeen could not be reached. Gellman says, "I am not at liberty to discuss anything."

Powerful Media Co-Chairman Kurt Andersen says only, "they are both gone," but he declines further comment on their sudden exit. The new magazine is slated to put out its first edition on Dec. 4.

Despite the ongoing dot-com meltdown, Andersen insists everything is going smoothly.

"Our investors are happy and in it for the long haul," he insists. "We have lots of money in the bank."

He says the company raised "over $30 million" in two rounds of financing and has spent "considerably less than half of what we raised."

Plans are to take the magazine weekly at some stage next year - before the money runs out.

*

Before they packed up for the weekend, St. Martin's officials did transact at least one piece of business, nosing out Random House for the rights to Richard Dry's first novel, "Leaving."

It's being described by agent Victoria Sanders as a "black 'Grapes of Wrath.'"

Dry, currently an English instructor at Las Positas Community College in Livermore, Calif., says he pulled in an advance in the "mid to high five-figure range."

He says he doesn't see it as a disadvantage to write a multi-generational saga about an extended African-American family while he himself is white. "To me, all fiction is trying to get inside the head of characters and make that empathetic link," he said.

The book centers around the extended family of a woman named Ruby Washington, who leaves North Carolina after witnessing the murder of her fiancé, and arrives in Oakland in the days after World War II.

Sanders says she expects the book to be out sometime in 2002.

* Please send e-mail to:

kkelly@nypost.com