You’re passionate about food, and have devoted hundreds of hours to your food blog. But is it realistically possible to make a career out of cooking, taste-testing, and talking about food to anyone who will listen?
Adam Roberts, who started the Amateur Gourmet in 2004, was able to turn his humorous failures and successes into the kitchen into a book of essays, and later parlayed his food savvy into shows on FoodNetwork.com and Food2.com. Molly Wizenberg, who also started her blog Orangette early on, acknowledges that although newer bloggers have to stand out in a more crowded blogosphere, it’s not impossible if you stay focused and develop your strengths, whether it’s photography or writing about a niche subject. Jaden Hair, who started Steamy Kitchen in 2007, recalled, “After a few months of blogging, I thought seriously about doing it as a full-time job,” she said. She has a cookbook on the shelves and a built-in audience craving for more.
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Here, three food bloggers share six tips for making the leap into a mainstream or high-profile food career.
Take stunning photos. If you focus on food, you can’t just dash off one-paragraph posts or cull headlines from other sources. Trying to make your braised pork recipe or dinner at El Bullí evocative requires great photos, and food bloggers almost always take their own. “Food is so multi-sensory, and blogs are only visual, so you have to appeal to that one sense,” says Jaden Hair. She takes about 50 photos for each of her recipes before whittling down to the “money shots” and editing them. The perfect leading photo draws readers into the story, so work on developing your photo skills and look to sites like TasteSpotting.com or FoodGawker.com for inspiration.
Teach yourself all aspects of making a great blog. In addition to fine-tuning her photography, Hair also taught herself photo and video editing with tutorial sites like Lynda.com. She designed her site by learning to tweak WordPress. “I didn’t know a food stylist, so I just picked up cookbooks and studied them page by page.” Don’t be afraid to ask for advice. Most bloggers, photographers, and Web designers are happy to share tips with anyone who sends a friendly email.
| “Some bloggers suffer for not putting themselves out there enough… Ask yourself what you can do to stand out.” |
Take initiative in branching out. Chances are, you’ll find gigs that pay. After her blog started to gain momentum, Hair contacted a local paper and wrote for free, which eventually led to paying assignments and a column with the Tampa Tribune. She also contacted a local ABC affiliate and offered to do cooking segments, which led to gigs with NBC and CBS affiliates. “I made it a point to get as much media experience as possible,” she said.
Roberts got on the Food Network’s radar by initially emailing a Food Network blogger who showed up in his traffic stats. The email eventually led to a meeting with an executive who was casting for The FN Dish, then a more permanent show on Food2.com. “Some bloggers suffer for not putting themselves out there enough,” said Roberts. “You have to look at what’s out there and ask yourself what you can do to stand out.”
If you take time to develop great writing and photographs, chances are opportunities will also eventually find you. Because of the popularity of Orangette, Wizenberg was contacted by editors at Town & Country, Modern Bride, PBS.org, and NPR.org to contribute freelance articles, and by Bon Appétit to write a monthly column.
Monetize. If you have at least a few hundred readers a day on your blog, you can make money on your blog. Ad networks like BlogHer, Glam, and Foodbuzz typically pay rates that range from $3 to $6 per thousand page impressions, or more if you boast very a high readership. Over the course of a month, the pay begins to add up. With Steamy Kitchen’s wide readership, Hair said that ad revenue account for 50 percent of her earnings, but “even if it was ad income alone, it’s still a really, really good income.”
Whether your ad earnings can pay for just groceries or allow you to live off blogging, joining an ad network is an easy way to finance your passion.
You can also syndicate your content, like Hair does with the Tampa Tribune, but you should weigh the pros and cons. “I’m more in favor of creating new content vs. syndication,” said Hair. “It hurts SEO when you have duplicate content.”
When you finally score multiple projects, don’t neglect your blog. Learn to manage your time well. “Over the years, I’ve learned to manage my time and my creative energy so I can do the blog, write book proposals, come up with episode ideas for the Food2 show, and so on,” Roberts said. “The secret, I find, is in dividing the day. In the morning I blog, then I clear my head at lunch — taking some time for lunch is important (plus it’s fodder for future blog posts) — and then, in the afternoon, I work on all my other projects.”
While Wizenberg was working on her book, A Homemade Life, she took breaks by posting shorter pieces on her blog. “Blogging still felt like a lot of fun while I was writing my book,” she said. “It was like coming up for air.” Jaden Hair maintains a balance in her schedule, by doing TV only twice a month and limiting the amount of work to eight hours a day. And she continues to blog because she enjoys it. “I get to play in the kitchen,” she said. “That’s not work to me.”
Be a part of the conversation. Popular food bloggers stay popular by taking time to engage with their readers, by answering comments and emails. But you can also chime in on Twitter; the large pool of food editors, cookbook authors, and bloggers there means you can get instantaneous feedback on your posts, find out other other’s kitchen pet peeves, or discuss a hot sustainable food topic. And besides, writing from home can get lonely. “Twitter is my lifeline to other food bloggers out there,” said Hair.
Highlight your strengths. Wizenberg believes that great food blogs can come in all forms, whether the focus is photography, Japanese cooking, or story-telling, as long as the writing is not sloppy and the voice is authentic. Roberts added, “Whether it’s your concept, your voice, your design, your subject matter, or all of the above, those are the factors that’ll determine your success. Plus, your resilience: you’ve gotta keep blogging, even when no one’s commenting. Eventually, they will come.”
Diana Kuan is a freelance writer who divides her time between China and the U.S. She often blogs on the road for AppetiteforChina.com.
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