Select for a reader, not a topic
Start from the promise, not the archive. Write the reader and the result in one sentence each, then pick only the posts that move that reader toward that result — usually a third of what you thought. A post that is good but off the path stays on the blog. If the selected posts do not cover the whole path, the gaps are your chapter list for new material, and they are usually the chapters readers will value most because they were never free. The studio can outline the book from the promise; compare its outline with your selection and let the outline win the argument.
Give the collection a spine
Order the chapters by the reader's path, not the publication date. Rewrite every opening: a post opens for a stranger arriving from a search, a chapter opens for a reader who just finished the previous one. Write real transitions — a sentence at the end of each chapter that names what comes next and why. Remove everything that assumed a web page: "as I wrote last week", links to posts that are now chapters, calls to comment, dated references. Unify the voice; posts written over three years drift, and the reader notices in a way they never did one post at a time.
Add what the blog could not
A book earns its price with what the posts did not have. An introduction that names the reader and the promise. A closing chapter that puts the pieces together into a method. A worked example that runs through the whole path. Templates and checklists pulled out of the prose into pages a reader will keep. And the honest material — the mistake, the client story, the number — that you would not put on a public page. Then export to PDF and EPUB with a cover and a table of contents; the collection becomes a book at the moment it looks like one.
Common questions
Straight answers
Will the eBook hurt my search traffic?+
Not if the posts stay up. The book is a different product for a different moment; many authors keep the posts as the free path to it.
How much rewriting is realistic?+
Every opening, every transition, and about a fifth of the body. If you are rewriting less, the posts were already chapters; if much more, they were the wrong posts.
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