Well, there’s plenty of source material for a book in the more than 100 pages of registration documents the social network filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission at the beginning of February, plus still more paperwork in the form of three amendments, appendices and the pending Instagram acquisition.

The SEC has yet to approve that purchase, which would impact final approval of all the other papers mentioned.

Facebook has pushed the boundaries of what the SEC allows companies to do between the time they submit registration documents and the actual IPO transaction — from holding weekly private auctions after filing registration documents to acquiring a competitor and somehow managing to leak tips to the media anonymously — that we wonder whether a deal could actually happen by the last-rumored date of May 17, rather than later.

The longer the lead time to an actual IPO, the better the market for an e-book about the deal could be. And this book is about the deal, rather than a story about the company, although that’s part of it too.

The Facebook IPO Primer now sells on Amazon in the Kindle format, and will become available through other booksellers in the future.

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The May 17 date would depend on the Securities and Exchange Commission approving the necessary paperwork, including filings related to the acquisition of Instagram, TechCrunch reported.

SEC rules effectively prohibit anyone with direct knowledge of the pending transaction to have an on-the-record conversation with the media.

Of course, certain types of individuals have a vested interest in getting the word out, since that would increase the hype over the transaction, which is exactly what the SEC rules try to prevent. It’s the anonymous seekers-of-hype that enable the media to cover things that no one will talk about even though many of us suspect it to be true.

In recent weeks we’ve noticed that the meaning of the term “quiet period” has kicked in: Since last Tuesday when we reported the first rumor of a May 17 IPO scheduling, the volume of news announcements concerning Facebook has tapered off. Of course, some of this can be attributed to spring break, but most schools have that vacation either the week before or after Easter. We’re past that now.

Facebook has stopped trading in private markets, so the shares — which currently number around 2.5 billion outstanding — don’t have any other way to trade until a public offer happens. So if the date doesn’t turn out to be May 17 (or 16), surely it can’t happen much later than that.

But if things get delayed significantly longer, that might be the result of all the hype, ironically. In the past, when companies have run afoul of the SEC rules against overhyping companies right before they go public, the penalty has usually involved a postponement of the deal. That has a way of keeping people in the know quiet, although not to the point that they don’t make anonymous tips to members of the media.

Meanwhile, not trading on private markets anymore is keeping Facebook’s implied valuation from soaring much higher than the last close, which was just over $100 billion.

Now if the public stock market started to move in a different direction, that might motivate Facebook to rethink when it goes public. So far, however, things look bullish as far as we can tell. Readers, do you think Facebook will go public by mid-May ?

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The SharesPost email said:

At Facebook’s request, SharesPost will cease facilitating transactions in Facebook stock as of Friday end of day to help ensure the company’s orderly transition into the public markets.

A previous message from SharesPost that went out an hour before said the auction‘s closing date changed to this Friday, March 30 from a previously planned Monday, April 2. continued…

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The company doubled its line of credit to $5 billion and obtained an additional bridge loan of $3 billion to provide funds for employee stock vesting. The lead lenders on the latter are JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley. All 10 of the line of credit financers are on the IPO underwriting team.

The IPO underwriting team has expanded from six banks to 31, with the additions including Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, RBC Capital and Wells Fargo.

Facebook acknowledged a possible legal duel with Yahoo, which wants the social network to pay licensing fees on 13 patents. No further action has occurred on this front yet, but the social network acknowledges that additional legal threats from other parties might emerge as the IPO approaches.

New advertising products announced at the Facebook Marketing Conference could boost revenues and thus improve investment returns on the forthcoming stock offering; conversely, all of these new innovations bear some risk because they are unproven.

Facebook acknowledges that fake or duplicate accounts account for five to six percent of the monthly active user base, or about 42.5 million to 50.7 million.

While the original IPO registration had stated that Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg controls the majority of voting shares in the company, a new section at the front of the filing reiterates this information that was previously buried in a list of risk factors.

Facebook’s first amendment to the IPO registration, filed February 8, had spelled out that the social network had an exclusivity agreement with Zynga, but now the more recent filing points out that the launch of Zynga.com signals the two depend less on one another, even though you still need to have a Facebook account in order to play anything on the gaming portal.

The social network said it had 432 mobile users in December 2011, an increase from the 425 million stated in the original registration document. And over 13 percent of the mobile users access the site exclusively from handheld devices.

The company said in the S-1 that 15 million people used Facebook Credits during 2011.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.