What is the difference between an e-book and a blog?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

• 
  Steven Ciccantelli: What is the difference between an e-book and a blog? For SEO and unique content would it be better to write an e-book or would a series of blogs work out better?
• 
  Unique Websites: Speaking purely as a reader, if I follow a link only to be asked to sign up to an e-book (free or not) I leave the site. If it's a blog post or a series of blog posts, I keep on reading.
• 
  Steven Ciccantelli: +Unique Websites so an e-book is just a long blog for sale then?
• 
  Neil Robins: Quite often you see a series of blog posts on a subject plus the option to download the entire series as an ebook. This latter option gives you the opportunity to capture email addresses fro future marketing.
  PS. This is not really an seo matter - more a marketing question.
• 
  Edwin Jonk: To me separate articles combined together isn't an book, nor is a book divided into articles a blog. Both are different. What you can do is use your book for articles like +David Amerland ;does. That is, you use your book as a start/inspiration to write an article. On the other hand you can also use your articles as a starting point for your book. I am not sure but I think David once said that he started his book because someone suggested that he should turn his powerpoint into a book....
  
  Maybe +David Amerland ;can enlighten us...  ;
• 
  David Amerland: Thank you for the ping here +W.E. Jonk ;  ;and +Steven Ciccantelli ;  ;a book is a carefully organised chain of thought that explores a specific topic or a single idea, in depth. It has a beginning, middle and end and the same goes for an ebook. Just because the binding has changed the definition hasn't. Blog posts are piece-meal and open-ended leading into an evolution of the online conversation. They can also be way broader than a book and they are obviously shallower. The way an audience treats each is also different. ;
  
  And +W.E. Jonk ;no, Google Semantic Search is the 6th book for me and the subject came out of conversations with my agent one very late night. ;
• 
  Steven Ciccantelli: +David Amerland +W.E. Jonk +Neil Robins thank you I think my next question will be for authorship boards so best bet for seo would be a series of blogs as I have no need for a mailing list.
• 
  Jim Munro: Thank you for your participation, +David Amerland ;, we are honoured to have you here. :)
• 
  Randy Brown: a few years ago I wrote an ebook and sold it for $10 a copy as a .PDF.. after sales dwindled I converted it into an iBook and made it available in the iBook store for free. I also converted it into HTML and posted it as a series of pages/posts in my blog.
  So.. there's that..
• 
  Neil Robins: A blog is just a different style of website with pages and posts. An ebook, as rand said, is presented in PDF format but usually downloadable as a zip file to reduce size and usually 40+ A4 pages of content. Anything under the 40pages would be a report &/or article.
  
  You could use your blog website to either sell or give away free the ebook/article etc.Another possiblity is to break the ebook down and present it as several "posts" on your blog.
• 
  Unique Websites: +Steven Ciccantelli ;Some e-books may be way better than a collection of long blog posts; my comment was that - personally - I prefer to read a series of long blog posts than be forced to sign up for an e-book.
  
  Sometimes I've followed a Tweet about something that sounds interesting, realised that they just wanted me to sign up for an e-book and left the site immediately feeling annoyed; had that same company given me a blog post then I'd have read it and retweeted/shared if it were good.
  
  Maybe that's just me and others react differently?? Or maybe it's the type of info you're sharing that makes the difference? (The sites I reacted against were trying to get me to sign up for SEO and Social Media info.) Maybe also, if you really want the info, then you'll sign up.
• 
  Search Lab Marketing: An e-book is generally considered a "middle of the funnel" resource.  ;Because it's typically offered in pdf format and hosted behind a landing page (with a form) it's purpose is more conversion than attraction (in terms of lead generation).  ;A series of blog posts however would be considered "top of the funnel" due to their ability to attract new visitors to your website, build your SEO, and generate social engagement/buzz.  ;
  
  I would consider the content before making the decision.  ;If the intent is to draw more people into the website it should be a set of linked blogs, if the intent is to generate leads via conversions and contacts then an e-book is appropriate.
• 
  Edwin Jonk: From the expert panel in this weeks SEO Questions hangout on air on 02:25:58 into the YouTube video: https://dumbseoquestions.com/q/what_is_the_difference_between_an_ebook_and_a_blog