You'd think a guy who's written books about rodents, New Jersey swampland and Native American fishing rituals wouldn't have to be so obvious as to write a book called How Not to Get Rich. Still, it's nice to read a how-to book and be able to trust that the author really knows what he's talking about.

As good as Robert Sullivan's bona fides are for non-wealth formation, they might be improved if he were also a blogger. But he isn't. He insists on writing only for money. Which isn't exactly a how-to-get-rich strategy, but it lacks the unrich-zeness of writing for free.

Robert is a natural blogger. Or would be if he would only listen to me and sign up at Typepad already. (Trust me, I've tried.) Check out the opening of his chapter on "How to Spend the Bulk of Your Leisure Time If You Are Not Going to Get Rich, Probably Ever":

You read. You read for pleasure. Nor constantly; you want to see your friends and get outside once in a while and so on, but you want to do a lot of reading. Perhaps it sounds too simple, but reading is an important strategy in the pursuit of a lifestyle that is, monetarily speaking, not that well off.

See where I'm going with this? Just change read and reading to . . . :

You blog. You blog for pleasure. Nor constantly; you want to see your friends and get outside once in a while and so on, but you want to do a lot of blogging. Perhaps it sounds too simple, but blogging is an important strategy in the pursuit of a lifestyle that is, monetarily speaking, not that well off.

Doesn't that make perfect sense? I'm not arguing that Robert is a Web 2.0 guy (hell, he's not really even a Web 1.0 guy, though he did manage to install a wireless network in his new apartment). But he sure is a long-tail guy (please review book subjects, above), and he belongs on the web. I promise to keep trying.