Nice observation. I published a novel, released it for free and on Amazon, and while I made some money and got some publicity, I find that blogging makes it easier to edit yourself and attract attention, and I got a few perks from blogging that I never saw from writing the book. I had a reader mail me a novel I mentioned regretting not reading, which was pretty incredible, and I met a handful of really neat people I met because they were following my blog posts.