Hm. I disagree with this. I don’t think daily posts are any excuse for poor spelling and grammar. Now I make plenty of mistakes myself, but I spend a lot of time on editing, striving for clarity, efficiency, and correctness. In fact, the “editing” portion of my day takes more time than the “writing” portion. I read each post aloud. I cut cut cut words as much as possible.

Again, I’m not perfect. I don’t pretend to be. But I don’t think it’s true that “good bloggers focus on the ideas alone”. In fact, I think the success of my site is largely because I focus on communicating effectively. I’m not an idea man. I’m a communicator.

I also disagree with this assertion: Book writers take a handful of compelling ideas and polish them and scrub them and hone them. This is a very intense work process, one that simply wouldn’t be lucrative or sensible in a blog format.

Are you aware of the economics of book publishing? For most authors, it’s not a lucrative venture. They’d be better off blogging. Over the past year, as I’ve prepared to explore books of my own, I’ve spoken with several writers. All of them have confessed that it’s no way to make money. They all have other jobs to make ends meet, and squeeze the writing in where they can.

The people I talk to spend several months to a year on each book, and expect only to earn $5,000-$10,000. Unless a book is very successful, it’s not going to earn back its advance. Every one of the writers I’ve spoken with has expressed the wish that they could trade positions with me.

And you know what? From what I can tell, I work more at my blog than these writers do at their books. (And that’s not gloating or criticism, it’s just an observation.)

While I agree that blogging is more like a conversation than reading a book, I disagree that the information in books is more timeless. There are plenty of transient books, even personal finance books.

Have you picked up a pf book from the mid-80s? The advice is mostly useless because things have changed so much. Conversely, some of the things you and I write (your financial armageddon pieces, for example) are more timeless than that which you’ll find in modern personal finance books.

Finally, it’s a mistake to believe that publishing houses are interested in quality. Yes, that’s one aspect of the equation. But what publishers want most is content that will sell. Their goal is to make money. They’ll publish dreck if they think people will buy it. A huge audience is a better barometer of a possible book deal than the ability to write well.

Most of the time you and I agree on things, Trent. This is one case where we don’t. I disagree with almost everything you wrote in that comment! :)

(Raymond, there are personal finance writers — and other writers — who keep blogs. Check out Liz Weston. Check out Andrew Tobias. Check out Freakonomics. Check out Malcolm Gladwell.)

Blogs are more like “idea factories,” and it is incredibly tough to write multiple compelling articles each day – that’s why often the writing is often somewhat unpolished. Good bloggers focus on the ideas alone and enough structure just to explain the idea, but there’s not enough time to polish it up with perfect grammar, elegant choices, and such. People that criticize word choices, for instance, in a blog posting usually aren’t thinking about the challenge of writing that much original content, day in and day out.

Book writers take a handful of compelling ideas and polish them and scrub them and hone them. This is a very intense work process, one that simply wouldn’t be lucrative or sensible in a blog format. Lynch and Rothchild likely spent several months fact-checking and carefully polishing the words in this book into a very enjoyable and readable piece. Blogging simply doesn’t offer the kind of financial return that would be needed to justify that kind of work.

Blog writing enables a deep connection to the audience, but the advice is often transient. It’s more like a conversation. A book, on the other hand, is timeless – Lynch’s books have been in print since the early nineties. The effort in polishing that advice and making it shine pays off because it’s compelling even a decade and a half later.

Another challenge: blogging is a meritocracy where everyone can publish and the audience chooses what to read – the cost of entry for the writer is very low, at least to begin with. That’s why there are a lot of blogs – and a lot of very bad blogs. Book writing, at the level of quality required to get a publishing house interested, requires the devotion to write a book, the talent to come up with the ideas, and the effort to fact-check and to polish. The end product of a book is usually of higher quality because of the threshold of entry.

Which is better? It really depends upon you, the reader. I like a mix of both in my reading diet, along with well-executed periodicals.

-Raymond