It’s becoming ever easier to refine one’s thoughts publicly, letting other benefit from and comment on initial great ideas, before taking the plunge of submitting a book manuscript to editors (cf. my developing essay on cloning communication channels).
See, for instance, Seth G‘s 99 Cows (lovely companion to his new book, released on its publication date), Halley S’s Alpha Male lessons, Wil W’s new life as an author.
Then there are the instructive notes from people who learned to write, then came to master the art of sending messages to everyone — via printer and by-hand mass mailing, then via mail, over the web; is it the same? Do people who have made one leap eventually go further and use the effort they put into their biyearly family mailing to generate a beautiful corner of the web for others? some people, of course, come to put everything that might interest others on their personal site…
What lessons are to be learned here? Certainly none of the people above regretted being open with their thoughts and writing before committing them to a publication deal, nor had to retract old writing. How and when does publishing profusely online hurt (potential) authors?