Not all pre-internet but I have a bookshelf of >30 bicycle touring books with more on the kindle. Among my reading favorites are (were):
- Off the Map by Barbara Savage and some of the books by Josie Dew. What I like about these are the descriptions and tales of their travels.
- National Geographic articles by Roff Smith in 1998/1999 followed by his book Cold Beer and Crocodiles. Served as inspiration for my own trip around Australia.
- Off the Map by Mark Jenkins. One of the first accounts of cycling across Siberia and inspiration for my own trip.
- Blogs by Nancy Sathre-Vogel also inspiration for my own trip.

Absolutely agreed. Also a difference I find in writing a blog vs. writing for a book. Folks do blogging differently, but I mostly use a blog as a more immediate account of what happened, where I went, photos along the way, etc. As such, I don't worry as much about repeating myself - if somewhat similar things occur five days in a row, I might repeat myself in those multiple days.While blogging I also tend to emphasize more the immediacy of getting something written out - since if I spent too much energy honing for perfection it is less fun and might never get done.

There is a certain pattern and similarity to being on a long bike trip, sometimes coming through interesting experiences along the way or subtle differences. When writing for a book, I try much more to at least thread together the most interesting things that happened and either overall perceptions or subtle observations, while de-emphasizing the repetitive stuff.

Most of the chapters have an overall "crossing continent X" type theme that would be in its own way a chronological storyline. However, I also de-emphasize some of that story line to concentrate more on the most interesting/amusing/startling/different things that happened while using "I crossed X" to tie it together.

Agreed. I still have blogs up and posted for five of my six longest trips, so I also have them chronicled there. However, going back and trying to summarize them differently is also an interesting way to look at them again.

There was a certain finality of crossing my sixth continent (since I'll never cycle across the seventh) and then just idea of trying the experience of writing a book that motivated me in this exercise.

I'm not necessarily trying to write a wildly popular book, but also want something done well enough that it can be read by someone other than my mother. As such, there is some value in getting an editor to help clean up at least the mechanical parts of the writing I might overlook in my self-edits.