129: Forging Your Own Path with David Lebovitz

In this episode, we talk to David Leibovitz about how to develop the ability to stick with it. A lesson from his uncle that helped him build his brand and his atypical approach to blogging analytics. Hello. Hello, Bjork Ostrom Here you are listening to the Food Blogger Pro podcast. And today we have the honor of having Dave. David Leibovitz on the podcast. And David is gonna be talking about his blogging journey for a long period of time. He's gonna talk about just how long he's been doing it and the things that he's learned along the way that have allowed him to continually show up every day, to continually produce content and to do the things that he loves. And all of those are essential parts of this brand building blog building journey. There's gonna be a lot of gems for you to take away and I know that you'll really enjoy this interview. So let's go ahead and jump in. Thanks, David. Welcome to the podcast.

Hi, Bjork, how are you doing?

I'm doing great. Yeah. Thanks so much for coming on and worked out really well because right now you are actually in the US For a book tour. When does that kick off?

It starts next Tuesday, November 7th, and that's when my book is released. So I landed a few days early to get over my jet lag and to make some cookies for the first event.

Nice. So those are cookies that you will bring to the first event, which makes sense that you would bring that along with. And where is that first event at?

It's going to be at the Powerhouse Arena Bookstore in Dumbo in New York and Brooklyn. And the only thing I'm concerned about is there might be a lot of people there. And I don't know if I can make a couple hundred cookies in the kitchen. I'm in. So.

Right. It'll have to be. You'll have like the really good cookies and then you can, if you need reserves, you can get some pre made ones that slide in underneath.

Well, often when I do events, when I'm traveling, people go, didn't you bring anything?

Yeah.

And I'm like, well, you know, the flight attendants needed the kitchen for the lunch service. So yeah, I couldn't make cookies or you know.

Yeah. So I was doing an interview recently with somebody who was talking about a book that they were going through the process of publishing. And I said, oh, it must be nice to be at the point where you're finally done with it. Because they had been kind of working on it. And they said, well, actually to Be honest, it's kind of the halfway point. When you finish the book, it's like, that's the halfway point because then you launch into this entire different process of promoting it. So do you feel like you're at the, like, beyond the halfway point a little bit, kind of 3/4 of the way through, or where do you feel like you're at right now with the book?

Well, you know, you're never done with the book because you're always, you know, you look at things. It's like going back and looking at old blog posts, and you're like, oh, gosh, I want to change that, or maybe I should try that with a different kind of salt. So I'm never done with a book, even when, like today I was testing a recipe and I was using American buckwheat flour. And because I live in France, I was using French buckwheat flour. And it is slightly different.

Yeah.

So I'm always learning something. I'm like, well, maybe I should make a note in the book. Of course, the book is coming out on Tuesday and the books are all being shipped.

Yes. Yeah.

The recipe is not changing at all, but I thought maybe I should make a note of it.

Yeah. And it's one of the big differences between a book and the web. We're going to talk about your story as a blogger here in a little bit, but just how permanent it is. So with your other books that you've published, will you go back and make tweaks and adjustments when they're rereleased or how does that work?

You know, you can usually what happens, you know, you go through a very extensive copy editing process with a book. And this is not a cookbook, it's a memoir. But it has about 25 recipes. And you know what? Everybody makes mistakes. You know, I get emails from people and there's a typo in it. You know, even very seasoned people make errors. So you often, you have to have a copy editor checking your grammar and spelling and so forth, and you want to make sure everything's right. Once again, it doesn't always happen, but fortunately it doesn't happen with a recipe. I did see a cookbook that had a cookie recipe that called for two cups of baking powder, and it was an Italian American cookbook. I was like, I think that's a typo. So I knew that.

This seems a little bit off, but.

Recipes are always in transition. Even if you have the perfect recipe on your website or in a book, you know, recipes change, people change, our tastes change. Now we like these chewy chocolate chip cookies that are very buttery and have salt in them.

Yeah.

You know, everybody is worried about salt and what kind are they going to use and how they're going to use it. And can they use this?

Yeah.

So there's all these challenging questions, and at some point you just have to say, well, I'm leaving some of this up to the reader, which often you do in a book because you can't explain like you can on a blog, or you don't have comments.

Yes. To iterate after or to refine or answer individual questions after. Yeah. So want to do a little bit more time in the book and then come back to it? But I practiced and pulled up all of these pronunciation websites. This is how I would say it, les apart. But I'm guessing that's not the French pronunciation of the word.

Well, the French have a word, and we use it in English. It's called the liaison. And when you have an l and an apostrophe, you never have two vowels together. If you have two words, then you always either use a noun or a consonant, rather. So it is pronounced la parte.

Okay.

And it's actually short for apartment.

Got it.

But apart is sort of what people say. French people know how challenging their language is, so they often shorten words because they're just too long. So I shortened it to lap out.

Got it. And the story with the book, along with some recipes, is the process that you went through and kind of learning about what the experience of really making your apartment your own, remodeling it, moving into it and tied into French culture and how all of those things overlapped, and then recipes to go along with it. So where did you get the idea to talk about your apartment and how it touches all of those other facets of your life?

Well, because I'm a blogger, I tend to write about my personal life on my blog, and I share it with readers. And when I bought the apartment, I thought, well, this is going to be really interesting. I'm going to share these stories. It's going to be fun. I'm going to take people to the, you know, shopping for stoves with me and looking for sinks and, you know, the remodeling and watching demolition. And it was kind of fun. And I spent, you know, I wrote about three or four blog posts, and people were very excited. And then things started going in another direction, and it wasn't a direction that I was expecting or wanted it to go in. And anyone who's remodeled knows that this happens. You know, all of a sudden you find yourself, oh, my God, I don't have a kitchen. I don't have a bathroom. And they're not showing up anymore. Where are they? And why aren't they showing up? Which is the big unanswered question of the universe. Like, why don't contractors show up and finish? So in my case, it was a very long, drawn out process. It was very painful. And I stopped writing about it because I couldn't find humor in it anymore. And I didn't think people really wanted to know some of the nuts and bolts of what was going on. So I stopped. And people for months and then years were like, what happened? We want to know. And some people got very demanding. They were like, I demand to see the big review.

Yeah, right.

I was like, wait, when I'm done with therapy and I'm all fixed from this, maybe. So I kind of let it go for a couple of years, and then I was walking down the street in New York and I said, you know what? There's a great story in this, and there's enough distance that I can tell it. So I did great.

And coming out November 7th, when this podcast comes out, the book will have been released. Um, so we'll be sure to link to that in the show notes, and people will be able to pick it up right away, recording this before then. But we'll be able to purchase this once the book comes out. We'd love to talk some more about that, but I want to, at this point, rewind a little bit and go back to 1999. What a great year.

18 years ago. Wow.

Yes. And so take us back 18 years ago to a point when you said, you know what? I am going to publish a website and I am going to put some content on that. Something that today seems so obvious, but in 1999 was not an obvious thing to do. What was happening in your life in that point?

Well, I had left my job as a pastry chef and a baker. I was baking professionally in the San Francisco area, and I left my job and I wrote my first cookbook. And I thought, you know, there's this thing called the web, and it'd be really interesting to do a website where people can contact me if they have questions about the recipes in the book, and I can share stories and so forth. And in the be careful what you wish for category, I started publishing, you know, updates to my site. I had somebody. We didn't have blogs back in those days. There was no blogging software. Or platforms. But it definitely was a blog. And I was publishing stories and tips and recipes and so forth and manually changing them. And then around, you know, a lot of my friends especially who are professional cookbook authors or writers were like, what are you crazy? You're writing all this stuff and, you know, you should be working on books and so forth. And I thought, well, this is what I want to do, and you should always follow what you feel you want to do, in my opinion. And it just felt right for me to keep going. So there was people such as Heidi Swanson of 101 Cookbooks, Elise Bauer of Simply Recipes, Adam Roberts of Amateur Gourmet, and a few others. And they were writing food blogs. And I thought, oh, you know now. And also I was using something called movable type, which was the first blogging platform, I think, and you could link to people. And we started sort of leaving comments on each other's blogs. And literally there was probably seven of us. And it was such a different time. We were really. There was no such thing as advertising. The whole idea of, like, SEO or any of that, those just didn't exist. Yeah, we were just kind of writing about stuff. And if you look at my old blog posts, they're really goofy. It's kind of funny. The pictures are bad. I shot them on my little point and shoot. But then all of a sudden, there's trying to be more blogs. And then there was some articles in newspapers and magazines about this food blog phenomenon that was happening, and then a lot more people jumped in the pool.

So at what point was that that you started to see it going from hey, we know who all these people are, to people starting sites and you being like, I have no idea who you are. And, you know, this is something where maybe it's once every week or a couple every week are popping up and other people are starting to say, hey, I have a food blog as well. Like, at what point was that that you started to notice that happen?

Was probably around 2006, 2007. And also back in those days, you know, people were writing more blogs. But it's kind of interesting because all of a sudden you'd have people that lived in, like, South Korea or Vietnam or writing, you know, it was like, wow, this is incredible. I'm actually in somebody's kitchen or at the market with them.

Yeah.

And also back in those days, someone wrote an interesting blog post. I wrote one. I was one of the first people they ever let into the KitchenAid factory in Ohio, where, you know, the last you Know, American appliance, countertop appliance, made in America. They let me take pictures and I put them up. And I got a lot of people visiting my site, you know, was. Cause everybody was linking to it, everyone was talking about it. It's like, wow. And, you know, I started getting more and more visitors. And it was at the time when, when you wrote a post, if it was very useful, like how to make a chocolate cake, how to separate eggs, how to make whipped cream, those were really popular. And you would go to a search and, you know, if you went on Google, your site would come up first because nobody else was doing it. And that's actually one of the powerful things about Elise Bauer of Simply Recipes, who is such a wonderful person. She knew that, but she started doing it just naturally. She was learning how to cook and learning how to cook with her parents, and she wanted to teach people what she learned. And that's why her site became such a powerhouse and was so useful to many people.

Yeah. And we interviewed Elise way back on episode 16, so almost two years ago.

Wow.

Right now. So if people want to check that out, really great interview with. She talks about kind of some specific technical things about when there's a big SEO update and Simply Recipes was hit negatively and how she recovered from that. And just really, like you said, appreciate Elise, who she is and what she does and how she does it as well. So I would imagine that during this time, this transition, you being somebody who had experience in the traditional world of food and recipe publishing and then making them move into the digital world, especially at a time when it wasn't as accepted or understood that you would, I would imagine there would have been some pushback, like, why are you producing content for free? That in. In a normal situation, you would be able to, you know, have some type of an agreement with a publisher where then you publish this. But like, like you said, there wasn't really ad networks that worked that way. So did you have pushback from people within the industry saying, why are you doing this? Why are you producing something for free?

You know, I didn't. And another reason I sort of started the blog, sort of picked up traction, rather, was when I moved to Paris. And I thought, well, I'm going to write about all these pastry shops I'm finding here that you don't hear about, or restaurants. And I tried. This is the old days when you pitch things to food magazines and travel magazines, and everyone said, no, no, no, no. We just want you to write about, like, L'Duree and very famous places. And so I started putting them on my site and it was sort of the time where people were interested in going. They wanted to go off the beaten track and go to these little places. And then I started noticing the major media starting to use some of. Not use, but I saw some of the same places showing up in major media. So, you know, they were learning about them from me, which is fine. You know, I was putting it out there. I learned things from them as well. So, you know, I was. I had the freedom to do that. And now you're seeing a lot more magazines, you know, kind of take a deeper dive when they go travel in a lot of ways.

Yeah, it's interesting to see that and also interesting to hear you talk about how your story in moving to Paris impacted the type of content that you produced. So talk about that move. So in 2004, kind of around the time that, that you moved to Paris was also kind of the time that you started to move the site to more of like a blog type feel. Is that right? And that was around the same time?

Yeah, well that was around the same time because that was when Movable Type, I think was launched or started to become more well known. And nobody, it's not really well known anymore, but it was sort of the precursor to WordPress, so to speak.

Yep. And idea being literally what the name is, Movable Type, like you can. It's not just a static site. Like it's more of a blog related piece of software content. Yeah.

And I was writing in code, which I'm not a coder, I make cookies for a living. And all of a sudden I'm, you know, everyone's like, you missed an accent. And I was like, okay, I have to type like 12 characters in order to get the accent. And then, you know.

Yeah. So from Movable Type you went to WordPress or. And can you talk about what that transition was like?

I had a really great web person named Jesse Gardner who. He has a company called Plastic Mind and he worked with Elise on Simply Recipes and he took over my site, he redesigned it and I'm not sure what year it was, but the design I have right now is pretty close to what that was. And that might have been 10 years ago.

Sure.

And he really pushed me to keep it clean. Lots of white space, let the content come through. Nowadays a lot of sites have these pop up windows when you go there. Subscribe. Did you like this post? And da da da share this. The user experience. I can't even look at those sites. I can't link to them on my Facebook page because there's so many things that pop up. You can't read the content. So the user. It's all about. Jesse and I sort of worked together to make sure the user experience was pretty clean. The ads weren't intrusive. Lots of white. He said to me something really interesting. He said, you have the luxury of space. So white is luxury.

Yeah. It reminds me a little bit of. I forget who this quote is, but talking about music and the space in between the notes being as important as the notes themselves. And I think that can be true for design as well, where it's not just the stuff that's there, but it's also what's not there and how those things play into each the. The overall look and feel of the design.

Well, I saw a movie on a Swiss chef, and he said waiting between courses is part of the experience.

Oh, interesting. Yeah. And it's so true when you. There's been experiences where we've gone out to a restaurant and it's. The food comes too soon, and it's almost disappointing a little bit. So it's interesting to think about that, the rhythms of. Of content, whether that be in a restaurant on the web or music and how that makes a difference.

Yes. I go out to Eden, you know, a nice restaurant. They have these suggested wine pairings. I never do them because it's too much wine. It's too many flavors. It's like, I just want one, and I want to stay with it.

Yeah. Yeah, that's great.

And they're always like, really?

Yeah. It's like, yeah, just one glass of wine. You know, when you think about 18 years of producing content online, and especially for, you know, from the late 1990s to today, things have changed, and they change at a drastic pace. You know, it's even in one year, you can look back and say, man, a lot has changed this year. So for somebody that is both doing writing in the traditional sense, you have seven books now, is that right?

This is my eight.

So seven now. Eight. With this book coming out, but also really consistent content online. How do you approach, from a point of, like, keeping yourself sane while also continuing to grow and produce content, how do you approach your. Your brand and your business in terms of continual learning and being willing to let go of something that used to work in order to start doing something that maybe is in the early stages of working?

Well, I think it's important nowadays to be nimble. And one of the things that I, you know, One thing that works well for me is that I work for myself and I make all my decisions myself, which means I'm working 23 hours a day, but except when I'm in the shower.

That's your break?

Washing dishes. Yeah. I'm working, working, working. And I can change. I can say I want to publish, you know, it's Thanksgiving. I want to publish this kind of recipe. I want to write about this restaurant I ate at. So I don't have that. Oh, my God. I've got a production schedule, I've got a staff. I have to make sure, you know, is getting work and so forth. So I'm pretty nimble. On the other hand, or I should say in conjunction with that, I write books with Ten Speed Press, and I started working with them in 2004 with my ice cream book. And they gave me a lot of liberty to do what I want. And the other side of that was we're very collaborative, so they understand what I do. They don't tell me what to do. They ask me, and I listen to them and they listen to me. So it's a very good relationship. And they understand to have a blog and so forth. And they're very astute, actually, with the Internet now. They understand the power of it. A lot of, you know, the worst thing I ever. You know, the worst thing I've ever I see is these cookbook authors that start blogs. And the first sentence is, well, here I go. My publisher said I have to do this. So, like, okay, well, you know, after their third blog post, and they're done because they don't want to do it, and it's fine. And I like both. I like both. They're both different. Writing a book is more of something that's permanent and something that's edited and something collaborative, whereas my blog is me. So I like both. I like working with the publisher, but I like working for myself, too.

Yeah, One of the things you said, you talk about working, working, working in kind of this, you know, saying 23 hours a day, which sometimes it actually is. How do you. How do you sustain that? Because that's one of the things we talk about on the podcast a lot, is the importance of going all in. Like, if you're going to do this and you want to do it on a level where it actually is your income and it is your career, then it requires a lot, and I think sometimes more than people would imagine, but also it needs to be sustainable, and you can't burnout. And sometimes that happens when we are in, you know, fifth or sixth gear for too long of a period of time. And one of the things that I really respect about your journey, David, is that you have done this for a long time and have worked really hard for a long time. And the result of that is people come to you and they're like, I would really like to do this. And it might be like, well, so here's some details about what it looks like. Yes, but how do you sustain that over a long period of time?

Well, two things I've learned in my life that were very important. One was I used to have a very, very old uncle in San Francisco who was a psychology psychiatry professor, and he had never prescribed drugs for any of his patients in his life. And I was having all these issues at that time. And he looked at me, I was having issues with other people. He looked at me, he goes, you know what? It's either you or them. And that really taught me. It's like, well, do I want to make other people happy or do I want to make myself happy? And the other thing is, I learned living in France is the word no. We hear that a lot, but it actually is a way to. It doesn't mean you're a jerk or you're not a nice person when you say no to things. It just means, I can't do it and you can't do everything. Everyone's really busy these days. Emails come in. People want you to do things. And that is the hardest thing right now, is saying no to people, because I don't like saying no. And then people come back. People are sort of, well, when are you going to be free? And it's like, you know what?

I, you know, just, no, I'm not. I'm not going to be in this situation. So I think I would love to dive into each of those things a little bit because I think people will be able to take some. Some important takeaways from those two concepts. You or them. What does that look like for you as it relates to the work that you. And how do you use that mental framework in your work? Do you have specific examples of how that plays out?

Yes, I do. And one of the things that happens a lot to me is people who, I don't know, come to Paris and want to get together with me and actually love people. I love meeting people. I can talk till I'm losing my voice, but I'm working, like, six jobs and, you know, either I actually don't get to see my friends or my partner as often as I'd like. So I have to decide, well, do I want to go out with some friends who I haven't seen in a while, or do I want to go out with someone I don't know?

Yes.

And, you know, it sounds harsh. You know, I'm sorry. People are probably clicking away, but, you know, you have to make a decision. Do I want to do, you know, what do I do?

Yeah.

And that's a decision that I've made. And I've also kind of learned that when people sort of really are aggressively trying to get you to do something they want you to participate in, like a blog roundup or whatever, it's kind of. It's there. You know, they're the ones that are not being nice by being so. I can't even think of the word, but Insistent.

Yeah. Forceful.

Because everyone's busy. You know, when I send people an email, I'm like, if you're not busy or, you know, if you have time, if not, that's fine. Don't worry about it. Because I know how hard it is to say no to people these days, and I don't want, you know, I understand. My friends, you know, you're really busy. Elise is busy. You know, when I send Elise an email, you know, half the time I don't get a response. And that's okay. You know, I understand she's busy.

Right. Yeah. There's a. I don't remember which book it was, but in one of the intros of your. One of your books, you talk about one of the things that Paris taught you is that if you don't kind of nudge and position yourself, then you'll never be able to get into line or, you know, get on the train. I don't remember what. What. Where it was that you're getting, but. And for me, as like a Minnesota nice person that grew up in the Midwest, like, it's especially. Especially true to think about that. So I think it's. It's such a refreshing thing to hear, an important thing to hear, that you need to be intentional with that decision making. And, you know, when you talk about no, the word no, as kind of the second thing that you talked about being really important for sustaining yourself over the long period of time and continuing to work on your thing. I think one thing that I often think about with saying no is that the opposite side, if you say yes, you are saying no to something else and you talk about meeting with a stranger, well, that maybe means that you're not going to spend the night with your partner or spend an evening with your close friends that you haven't been able to spend time with recently. So that's one of the mindset, as a Midwest, Minnesota nice person that I continue to remind myself of is it's not just saying no, but it's also. Or it's not just saying no, but you're saying yes on the flip side, and vice versa.

A few years ago, you know, I used to write back to people that wanted to get together and say, thank you for your message because I believe you should answer email. I said, you know, thank you for your message. Fortunately, I'm unable to get together, but, you know, have a great trip. And, you know, and everybody was nice. You know, people write back, oh, thank you so forth. But one person wrote me this very nasty email back, and I learned a lot from that because she said, you know, who do you think you are? And da, da, da, da, da. And, you know, I was just like, whoa. And then I said, you know what? I'm not answering these anymore because I don't want that in my life. And I did get an email a few years ago from another woman that was upset about. I have, you know, before my contact form, I'm like, if you want information about this, go here, here, here. And it's very organized.

Yeah.

And, you know, and she wrote me and she was. It was kind of that kind of message. And I wrote her back and I said, you know, I spend a lot of time answering questions and da, da, da. And she wrote me the nicest email I've ever got. And she said she actually showed my response to her children to see, like, she said, this is how people should respond. And she goes, I'm really sorry, and da, da, da. So it was lovely. I love you. People should apologize. And it was a beautiful human interchange over the Internet.

Yeah. And those are hard to come by sometimes. Like those types of interactions.

It is. And it's, you know, and I'm still talking about it. And I'm. I kept your email like that was the right way to respond. And it doesn't mean she's a bad person for sending me that first email. It just means she wasn't thinking and she was having a bad day or something or whatever.

Yep.

So. And she's a good mother.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's for context. Whenever we have those interactions or exchanges with people, I think it's so important to remember, you know, you said this, maybe having a bad day, you never know what's on the other side of that, where they're coming from, what's happening in order to release that a little bit. Because inevitably, especially if you've been publishing content, you know, since 1999, but even if you do it for a year, you're going to get exchanges and people that reach out and that just aren't nice. And sometimes you have to intentionally shield yourself from that. Seth Godin talks about one time after he spoke at a conference, he was on Twitter and then went and looked and somebody said something nasty about his speech that he gave. And he said it was at that moment that he said, you know what? I'm not going to do Twitter anymore. And if you look, it's just an autoresponder of the blog post that he does, and he's turned off comments. And so it's maybe something you could audit. I know for me, I bend towards being highly impacted by those things. And so I'm intentional about how I take content in. But do you have any advice for people that receive those things and maybe some of the ways that you have intentionally protected yourself from that, or maybe some of the shields that you've developed over the years in order to be able to appropriately respond?

Well, I have a very secret. It's called an exit only policy, where I only do things that I want to do. So if somebody sends me something, I don't want to do it, or they ask me a question on social media and I don't have time or feel like answering it. I don't. And that is because I want to control, you know, once again, you want to control your life. You want to, you know, it's too much stuff coming in. I don't read reviews, and I know that people say that, but when my ice cream book came out, you know, somebody said that they didn't like the book because it had too many dairy recipes in it. And I read that and I was like, you know what? I'm never reading Amazon review again. And it's true. You know, I've never read an Amazon. I just decided that's not good to have in my life. If people have a question, it's very easy to get in touch with me. They can leave a comment on my blog. I also have another. I always tell people, if you said to everybody on the Internet, I'm going to give everyone $1,000, somebody would find something, they'd complain about it. They say, well, that's not in yen or it's not in Kroner.

This is too hard to get.

Yeah, you can Write the world's greatest blog posts. And, you know, the first comments, like, can you stop using oxford commas? Or something?

Yeah, for sure.

Gray is spelled with an A. You're just like, wow.

Well, I think it's good to bring up because it's one of those things that you inevitably will run into if you put yourself out there. And I think that's one of the hardest things to do. You know, we've in some way, shape or form have been involved with publishing content online since 2010. So not as much of a track record as you have, but we've had to experience some of those same things. And knowing that one of the biggest hurdles to overcome is though, that fear of putting your stuff out there and how the world will respond to it. So I think as much as possible, talking about some of those mental frameworks is really beneficial. Go ahead.

It's hard when people do say, well, you know, that's what happens when you put yourself out there. It's like, well, somebody said that Lin Manuel Miranda, the guy who wrote Hamilton, when I was at the show, they left like a comment, oh, I hate him. He's got like a weasel face. I'm like, this guy changed American theater. And you're telling him so.

The world that we live in, deep breath. It's one of those deep breaths response.

On the other hand, the other hand, I feel bad for them. I'm like, well, this is what their friends are like. And, you know, and this is what their life is going around complaining about Manuel Miranda's face.

Compassion on them as well. Yeah. So I would be interested to hear you talk a little bit about, you know, so we talked about a little bit about the publishing side of things, but when we're looking at the. Your blog, social media, there's all of these different areas that you need to focus on that fill up those 23 hours in a day. Where do you find yourself gravitating towards the most when it comes to the different platforms and what's been working well for you lately as a creator that publishes content online?

I would say Facebook a few years. It used to be Google was the number one traffic to most of our blogs. And I don't look at my analytics. I probably look at them three times a year.

Why is that?

Because I don't care. It doesn't interest me how many people are reading my site. I'm interested in doing what I do, and I hope people like it so. And that's very heartfelt. So, yeah, I don't look at all that stuff. And I don't try to write. You know, I told somebody once, I was like, I could write, you know, a chocolate cake blog and I'd make tons of money.

Yep. And not enjoy it. Potentially.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Years ago I was going to do a cupcake book. I was like, I'll just write this book in one year and then I can retire.

Yeah.

When cupcakes were big and I bought all this stuff and it's still sitting in my closet to make cupcakes. But whoops, I just lost the whole train of thought there. Yeah, it's all the sugar cupcakes.

I can go back because there's an interesting point that I want to make as a follow up. That's something that Lindsay talks about a lot. And it's interesting because our relationship where she's primarily the content producer for Pinch of Yum, the food blog that she runs and is behind. And I kind of do some of the behind the scenes things for it. And so I'm able to go into the analytics a little bit more disconnected. But she has said for her she is really hesitant to do that because what that triggers for her is this response to somehow impact those. And knowing that the response to impact those would oftentimes mean doing things that she's not very excited to do. And that creates soulless work. And one of the things that we talk about, I published a blog post on this a long time ago, but this idea of user controlled analytics and what are the things that you can do to keep track of. Maybe it's metrics or analytics, but it's not like how many people are coming to my site because so often that can be such an emotional thing to interact with those numbers. And while it's an important part of it, it doesn't have to be the thing. And I think some of those user controlled analytics could be things like, at the end of the day, how happy am I? And score from 0 to 10 and it sounds like for you and this makes sense, one of the main things is the actual content itself, which would be the food, the recipes, the experience. Are there other things that you find yourself gravitating towards that are really life giving to you?

Well, I should just sort of back up on the social media thing. I just hired my first assistant ever about six months ago and she's a young woman and she's kind of my Bjork where she goes into Pinterest and like this is your most popular pin, let's do an extended pin. And I'm like, okay, great. Because the content's already there, and she just makes it look nice and presents it better.

And how did you find her and get to work with her?

It's a funny story. She sent me an email, and I get emails from people a lot who want to come over and bake cake. They're like, I want to test recipes with you and make cake. And I'm like, well, it's a lot of paperwork and a lot of dishwashing. And she was one of the only people who never mentioned cooking, but she had a diploma from a cooking school. And I kept her email for some reason for six months. And then my partner was like, you need an assistant. You need an assistant. You need an assistant. And so I wrote to her. She actually didn't know who I was. She found me on the Internet. She had just moved to Paris. I was like, oh, okay. And it's great. You know, she's a young woman. She's really smart. She's been a personal assistant to other people and young people also. I'm like, can you figure out how to do this? You're like, sure, let me pretend to go in the other room and leave me alone. I'm like, okay, yeah.

And one of the things that you'd mentioned, and I want to bring this up before we get too far away from it, is that Facebook has been really impactful. Can you talk about a little bit about that and how you're using that?

Well, when I started on Facebook, I used to do link roundups on my site. I do, like, 20 links I found recently. And then I was like, oh, there's this thing called Facebook, and I can link to all these great. This great content. You know, fast forward to a couple years ago. I was looking at my analytics, and all of a sudden I thought Facebook was my number one source of traffic by a long shot, you know, and that was substantial. And even today, I have a very high engagement on Facebook. And the people at Facebook have even contacted me, and we've talked about it, and they're like, we don't know why the algorithm works so well for you.

Interesting.

You know, and it was interesting. It was. And they said, you know, you have. They said, it's probably because you're putting up quality content and you're engaging people.

Yeah.

And that's, you know, Facebook even. They don't know how the algorithm works.

Yeah. Isn't that fascinating?

Yeah. And I said, well, you know, a lot of people are mad because you're curating content. They're like, if we didn't, people's feeds would be, you know, just crazy, out of control. So they're like, we're actually doing it for better user experience. And there's some debate about that, but that was what they. You know, and these people weren't trying to sell me ads or ad space. So I started using Facebook more, I started using Twitter less. I loved Twitter when it came out, and I like the back and forth, the quickness of it. You know, people had a question, you know, we're coming to Paris. You know, is there a good bistro in the seventh?

Yeah.

Boom. I could answer it. And it's kind of, you know, now it's a lot of political stuff. And most people, you know, food people who I like, have sort of moved away from the platform. I did get very into Snapchat about a year ago, and I started using it, and I liked it because it reminded me of when the Internet started, or not the Internet necessarily, but blogging. And you could just take a picture. It could be out of focus, it could be blurry. It wasn't like Instagram, where there was all these very attractive people eating, you know, triple ice cream cones or something on the beach in their yoga bodies.

Yes.

You know, it was just real stuff, and I liked it. And so I was using that, and I still use it. I like Snapchat a lot. It's just that you don't have the engagement, but on the other hand, it circles back to do what you love to do. So, you know, I'm using Instagram stories now, but it kind of bothers me that they sort of use, you know, be like, if I opened a bakery down the street from a friend of.

Mine, and, you know, it's a direct clone from Snapchat.

Yeah, Right.

So, yeah. And the hard thing about it is that it probably. It's a direct clone that then kind of overshadowed Snapchat. Like, it. It's more people are using it, there's more engagement. And so if you are somebody that loves that medium, it's hard because, you know, originally that would be Snapchat, that you do that, but now Instagram, it's like, you are probably able to get more engagement if you're there.

Yeah. And you. Do you want 300 people seeing, you know, your thing or, you know, 10,000?

Yes. Yeah. Right.

But once again, you know, do what you want to do and, you know.

Yeah. And I. And I think what happens with that is as you discover those things that you want to do that you're passionate about that you gravitate towards that allows you to have those days where you're working for a long period of time. And it. It's work, but it's also something that you want to do, like you said. And so there's this weird overlap where suddenly it becomes a little bit of a gray area. Is this work or is this something that I'm enjoying and getting something from as well, not just giving?

Well, I think that was the whole idea of, you know, this whole great thing about social media was you could curate your experience. You could follow people you wanted to follow. You could, you know, look at recipes that were interesting to you on Pinterest in your stream. And then, you know, these companies started curating for us. And that's like, Pinterest now.

Yes.

You know, I don't use it very much because all of a sudden it's just all this stuff that I don't, you know, that I didn't put that. That I don't really, you know, I don't have a lot of interest in.

Yeah. And because of the. The algorithm or in Facebook maybe in a way too, with this, they start to take over the curation process. Is that what you mean?

Yeah, I mean, like, now they're doing ads on Pinterest. I'm seeing a lot of ads for makeup. I'm like, well, they know I'm a male. They know, you know, da d Can't they cure, you know, at least focus ads on someone like me? It seems kind of strange that they're not doing that because they're spending money, you know, that's being wasted.

Right, right. Yeah. Interesting to see how those evolve and sometimes so quickly, too. So let's say, you know, to kind of wrap up the conversation on the blog side of things. I really like this I idea of working on what you're passionate about, really investing in the things where you don't feel the, you know, the pressure or the resistance to do it. And we talk about resistance. Sometimes there's resistance to do things that are good and you need to push through that. But sometimes there's things that just aren't a good fit, and you need to be aware of that. I think that's a really big takeaway. But if you were to say, you know, if somebody's starting today or if they're starting sometime this year and they're just getting into it, what would your advice be to them as a creator in order to stick with it, to continually show up every day, and if they're lucky to still be doing this 5, 10, 15 years from now?

Well, we used to, in the cookbook field, we always used to say, don't quit your day job.

Yeah.

One, you know, and I would say with blogging, you know, fortunately there's no cost to doing it really. So pursue it as a passion. Don't plan to make money right away, if at all. And same with, you know, once again, same with cookbooks. Most cookbooks don't make money. People have something to say and they say it. It's a platform. You know, even some very popular cookbooks that we think sold a lot didn't, you know, never made money for the author. So, you know, I, I tell people, you know, I wrote my blog for eight years before we, there was ads, I think that that existed for blogs and you know, work for, you're basically working for free and enjoy it, you know, and blogging, like writing a cookbook is about giving, it's not about getting. That's a mistake people make with social media too. They're pushing their stuff. You know, in case you missed this post, here it is again. It's like, well, you're bothering people. You're telling them something that they've already seen. So try to think about the user experience a lot. What do people want to see? Do they want pop ups? Do they want to come to your site and have a window open right away? That's asking them if they want to subscribe. All that stuff can be overwhelming to readers. Sometimes it's good to just keep things simple. Adam Roberts of Amateur Gourmet, he was left blogging and just came back. He's like, you know what? I'm not going to think about anything but writing. And all these people are coming back and reading this blog and like, oh, I missed you, this is great. And you're just writing about dinner. And you know, him and I, we had lunch about a year ago and talked a little bit about that. And I said to him, you know, it was like he got, you know, sort of criticized, not criticized, but when he let start blocking, he's like, you know what I don't want to do Sponsors, sponsored posts, that's not who I am. And he gave an interview where he said, I think on his blog, like, I don't want to be a shill. And people actually sort of, you know, he's a New York, you know, Jewish person and that's not really a derogatory thing. It's kind of a, you know, I think, I think he meant it as a joke and People were sort of offended. They're like, well, I do sponsored posts and I'm at a shill and da, da, da. Like, well, that might work for you, but it doesn't work for him. And like, I know Lindsay does sponsored posts and she's very good about, you know, being natural about it. And I don't. I never feel like I'm being pushed to buy anything or that, you know, it seems natural or, you know, either she's brilliant or she's just a truly wonderful person.

I would say both. That would be the husband's perspective.

Okay, well, she's listening to this. I would say that too. But it's, you know, once again, it's a good mix. It doesn't feel forced. And I appreciate that as a reader, so. And also, people, I think should not compare themselves to other people. You know, Elise BAUER, she has 10 times more readers than I have. So does Deb. I can't compare myself to her, and I don't want to. I'm not Lindsay. You're not, you know, she's not me. But there's room for both of us and there's room for all of us. And it's actually important also, and I can't stress this enough, is to be nice to others. You know, I've seen so many times people have, you know, just sort of got snipey or bad mouth people, and that really doesn't never gets anybody anywhere. And we're sort of seeing, you know, sort of this downfall in a lot of the social and political things that are happening in the world. What happens when people aren't nice, you know, when they start attacking people or are jealous or whatever. And I mean this in a lot of different fields as well, not just those two, but it's so much easier to be a nice person and to be respectful. Say, oh, well, you know, Lindsay's making a green, you know, quinoa bowl and I'm gonna make, you know, pork fat riettes. And there's room for her and there's room for me.

Neither one is wrong. Yeah.

Yeah. And I'm glad that she exists and I'm, you know, I hope she's glad I exist. Yes, I'm sure she shouldn't be. She should eat more quinoa than pork fat Riad. So I will give her that if she's listening.

And I think that that is a really good note to end on and a really important thing for people to hear. And I think it ties into the sustainability of existing as a creator to have that spirit of giving and to have the spirit of kindness in the work that you do and how beneficial that can be to you individually, but also to the world and those that you are giving and serving. So I think that's really great. But before we officially end, David, I want you to talk a little bit more about your book. Where can people pick that up? And I'm guessing Amazon would be a place that we'll link to that in the show notes and then maybe just Another quick little SparkNotes version of what people can expect with that.

Well, the book is available everywhere. It's available, of course, on Amazon, Barnesandnoble.com and Indie Bound Books. Also your local bookstore, they can order a book for you if it's not there. One thing people forget is that bookstores can't carry a lot of books. So you don't go in and there's hunt. People are like, I can't find you. My bookstore doesn't have your book. Just ask them and they'll order books for you. And they like to do that. So if there's a great bookstore in your community, definitely order your book from them if you'd like. Or if you can't wait, you can order it online as well.

Awesome. Great. David, thanks so much for coming on the podcast today. Really enjoyed talking with you.

Yeah, it was great to talk to you after all these years. We've been. We tried to talk before, but the stars didn't.

Yeah, and they did.

Today's the day.

They did today, and I'm glad they did. So thanks for coming on.

All right, thanks.

Thank you to David for coming on and sharing a little bit about his journey, especially considering the fact that he's in the middle of a really big book launch. And as always, you can check out the show notes for all of the links and the tools and everything that we mentioned in the podcast. Really appreciate you tuning in. I say that often, but it means a lot. It's an honor to do this podcast and an honor to be in your earbuds wherever you are, whether you're in the kitchen, working out, driving in the car. I think it's such a cool thing that when I go around, maybe speak at conferences or have an event here in Minneapolis St. Paul, when we get to meet people, that we have a little bit of a connection because we've shared some of these conversations, and I consider that to be a really great honor. So thanks for tuning in. Thanks for subscribing if you're a subscriber, and thanks for rating if you've ever rated the podcast. That means a lot to us and it and it really adds fuel for our fire to continue doing this. So big thank you to you for tuning in. Signing off from St. Paul, Minnesota, this is Bjork. Make it a great week.

Sam.