How Britney-Brown Chamberlain Grew Her Food Blog to a $20K/month Business

If you want to grow your blog, which most of us do, we know that ranking on Google and other platforms is a big deal. But let's be real SEO tools can be complicated and expensive. That's why I want to introduce you to KeySearch. It's an easy to understand and affordable SEO toolkit designed with creators in mind. With KeySearch, you get keyword research, competitor analysis, rank tracking, a backlink checker, and more, all for way less than other SEO tools. And it's not just for Google. They also have tools for sites like YouTube and Pinterest because as we know, millions of people are searching for content on those platforms as well. Maybe you want Data driven strategy. Their Foresight feature, which is available on the Pro Plan, uses AI to analyze your site's niche authority and rankings, and then recommends personalized keywords for your content. Just plug in your domain and let KeySearch do the heavy lifting. KeySearch has been trusted by bloggers for over a decade because of its simplicity and affordability. Plans start at $24 a month for starter plan or $48 a month for the Pro Plan. But because you're a Food Blogger Pro listener, you get an even better deal. If you go to KeySearch Co FBP and use the code Food F O O D at checkout, you'll get your first month completely free. Again, that's KeySearch Co FBP and use the coupon code FOOD to get your first month for free. If SEO has felt complicated or expensive, KeySearch makes it simple and affordable so you can focus on what you do best. Create amazing content.

Hey there Anne from the Food Blogger Pro team. Here you're listening to the Food Blogger Pro Podcast. In this episode, we had the opportunity to chat with Brittany Brown Chamberlain, the food blogger behind Brittany Breaks Bread. You'll hear about how she went from a $200 a month blog to a $20,000 a month business. And she'll also dive into the strategic approach behind the concept of active passive income, offering practical advice on SEO and trend analysis. That's not all. Britney will also dive into her social media strategy, how she balances creating content she loves with what her audience craves, and the importance of high quality content that reflects her unique style. Plus, she goes beyond blogging and talks all about her cookbook Bake Until Golden Brown, brand partnerships and a difference between marketing content versus a physical product. If you're looking to take your blog to the next level and really turn it into a business, you'll definitely find A lot of great insights in this episode. And now, without further ado, I'll let Bjork take it away.

Brittany, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much. Oh, so happy to be here and very chat with you today.

Yeah, we are going to be talking about, believe it or not, your blog, your social following, building your business through the years. And one of the great things about your story is you have built this successful business. We're going to be talking about your cookbook, building your blog to over 500,000 page views a month, building your Instagram following, working with sponsors, and you've done it all within the past five years. And sometimes we'll interview people, you know, pinch of Yam being an extreme example. Hey, we started this in 2010 and it's like people are like, ah, I don't want to work on something for 15 years. I want to get it to a point where I can start to see some of those successes, you know, within the first year or two years, three years. And you've done that, you've had some of those successes, you've broken through some of those, you know, page view markers that are really significant. Um, and you done it all within the last five years, really. So talk to me about, you know, when we were chatting, you talked about kind of getting serious at a certain point, really starting to take it serious. Talk to me about that season. When did you really start to take this serious and what was your kind of headspace around it as you thought about building this into a business?

Sure. So I started my blog in October 2019 and it was just a fun something that I started on a whim. I didn't think it would ever amount to what it is today. And I spent the majority of 20, 20, 21 and half of 22 just praying that I could turn this into a full time position in 2021, October I had my son and I was still working a full time job and three months, I think I was on maternity leave for about six months and it came to a point where I had a ton of sponsored work. However, I didn't have a lot of income from my blog itself. I was on mediavine at the time, didn't really have that many page views or sessions. I think my checks were like maybe $200 a month on a good month. And so.

But it's, it's something, you can kind of start to feel it. You can see, okay, there's something here.

But I had no idea how to increase it. Like, how could, like it wasn't Sustainable for me with a young infant to keep pushing the pavement by doing all of this sponsored work. Because it's a ton. I mean, all of this is a ton of work. I just didn't feel that it was sustainable for me and my lifestyle. So I actually had a friend who was doing a mastermind. Her name is Eden. She runs the blog Sweet Tea in Time. And she. I don't know when she started doing her mastermind, but I just decided to reach out and say, hey, when's your next mastermind? Could I take part? I signed up, I did the course. She provided a wealth of knowledge. So much so that I was able to take my 200 checks, $200 checks to like, you know, upwards of 5K. And then I think it was like 10K. And, you know, recently it was almost 20. So.

Yeah. And this is a month. Like, this is how much you're earning a month. Yeah. Which is life changing.

Absolutely. It was my prayer that I never had to go back to corporate America.

And was the motivator for that. Because you talked about sponsor content, you were able to get sponsor content, work with brands. You also had your son. And it sounds like what was happening at that time, excuse me, was this idea that you kind of had tasted what it was like to have this entrepreneurial pursuit, this thing that you were building, but it was tied to you landing a deal, getting a brand, working with that brand. And there's an. Anybody who's done brand sponsorship knows there's an inherent amount of stress within that. And so it sounds like the next evolution out of that was it's not less work, but it's just a different type of work. And also a work that isn't quite as tied to. You do work and then you get paid for it. It was a little bit more like, hey, if I can build up some quote unquote, passive income from the site, maybe I can take a day or two and not have to worry about responding to a thing or working with a partner or brand and still make $500 in a day when you're not doing work. Is that what you were after?

Absolutely. And I think that there is a misnomer in that. Log work is passive income, but I call it active passive income because you're still doing work, you're still on your feet cooking and testing and all those things. But there's a lot more freedom in that work and that I can do what I want to do as opposed to running ideas by a brand and saying, I have this idea, this idea and this idea, which sounds good to you, what's your deadline? Fighting for what I think is a fair wage for X amount of videos and photos and usage rights and you know, things like that. And then you have certain brands where they'll reach out to you on a Friday and want work on Tuesday or Monday and you're like, hey, this is not sustainable. However, I don't have another source of income right now, so I kind of, I kind of need to do it and I just, I just didn't see that as sustainable in any way, shape.

Or form I've heard people talk about and I think this is, you know, good framework for thinking about this type of income where it's the, if it's transfer, if it's scalable, if it's repeatable and if it's transferable. And within the world of business, the more that you increase those types of income, scalable, repeatable, transferable, the more valuable that type of income can be. And I think brand partnerships, there's maybe some ways that you can do that can be scalable, that can be, you know, repeatable, that can be transferable, but not as much as work on a blog that's connected to ads and that's very scalable. You can, you know, do multiple recipes in a day. If you need to, you can work with somebody else who helps create those recipes. It's scalable, repeatable and someday if somebody else came over and took that over, they'd be, it'd be able to like transfer over to them. And so even if we never sell a thing that we're working on, we never, you know, sell our blog. We're, it's still a more valuable type of income because it just feels better to have that as, as a source of income for a lot of people. So go ahead, go ahead.

You don't have to worry about, you know, budget and if they like you or not or you know, am I going to get more work, can I get a year long contract or you know, or I'm only looking for one time work. There's a lot that it is up for the air, up in the air when you work with brands. And this is not to say that I don't like working with brands because I, I genuinely do. Especially if the, if the product or campaign aligns with what I am already doing. I recently worked with Crisco. I love working with Crisco because I bake with it all the time. So when they reached out I was like, absolutely would love to work with you. Let's make a pound cake or something like that. But it's just there's to me and how I feel and how I think and how I work. I just didn't feel like it was something that I wanted to do constantly.

Yeah, for sure.

Kind of on a hamster wheel, you know. Okay, well, we. That and then you have to. The whole aspect where you're chasing down your check, which is not. Yeah, a lot of times people don't really talk to you about that. Just because it's in the contract does not mean that they're going to pay you on time. I actually had an experience where I received the check in the mail and it bounced.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah. So.

And suddenly you're doing a job which you're not excited about. You're the billing department, your accounts receivable. For some people, they like that. And it's totally. There's some people who have like, massive success working with brands. It's all that they do. Their focus is that which is great. That's the nice thing about this world that we live in is like you can create your own job description. And it sounds like for somebody like you, the job that you wanted to be doing was having a focusing a little bit more on kind of the editorial type content. I'm going to decide to make this thing as opposed to sponsored content, which is like we're going to decide together what I'm going to make. And I think that autonomy can feel really good sometimes. So tell me about what happened between $200 a month to $20,000 a month. What was that transformation like for Brittany? How did you get to a point where you grew your business and what. What happened in between there that was most helpful for you.

So I don't think there's any one sole thing that helped catapult that specific metric. However, I again, the mastermind was very helpful because I started doing se, you know, search engine optimizing on my blog posts. I got a couple audits from Casey Marquis on my website just to make sure that everything was firing as it should. I also did free blog, free blogging calls with Arson from Top Hat Rank in addition to one of his programs. It was a backlink program where he just assisted with me getting more backlinks because at the time I had like virtually. It was. My backlinks were very low and all of these things were all very helpful. I guess on the front end, I was also doing a ton of keyword research, making sure that kind of. I won't say niching down, but making sure that the recipes that I was creating would resonate with my readers. And so I think just time and, you know, kind of just constantly hitting, putting the pedal to the metal and releasing as many recipes as I possibly could and just being authentic to myself, I think that was probably one of the most important factors. And as to what, you know, led to this, you know, growth.

Yeah, that's great. Pointing out real quick. We did an interview with Eden a few years ago. Now we've done interviews with Arson and Casey as well. So for anybody who's listening to the podcast now, you can go to foodblockpro.com podcast and search for those. We've also done some great. We just wrapped up a great live Q and A with Kasey. So for anybody who's a member, be sure to check that out. That was in February. If you had to, if you had to say, like, three things that you did, like, if you did have to pick the most three influential things, it sounds like maybe one of them would be having, like a reader or user focused mindset. Hey, is this going to be helpful for the reader? Is this going to be helpful for the user? And finding that middle ground between, like, is this helpful for them? Is it interesting for them doing some keyword research around it to see if there's an opportunity and then also seeing if it's something that you wanted to post about and that was within your niche or your focus. Does that kind of triangulation feel accurate for at least one of those key takeaways that came from working with these experts?

Absolutely. I think also more importantly of those three, knowing who your audience is and kind of what you appeal to. I appeal to the things that I like. So I'm not going to post something that I personally wouldn't eat. And I find that staying true to myself and posting things that I think are delicious is what resonates with my audience as well. Like, you know, I think that there are people out there who want to try new things. And I specifically put this on my blog. My blog is a place for people who like traditional recipes with a twist. So you'll get collard greens with smoked turkey, but there's gonna be a little something different in there that makes it grandma's recipe, but also yours, you know, and I think that that's, you know, that's what I appeal to. That's who I am. And I think that that's what resonates with my readers and, you know, helps to retain them.

Yeah, that's great. So that is a key takeaway. Are there two other things that you can think of, like, that you could point out? Hey, this transition from, you know, 200 to 20K, which is like such a great marker and massive growth. I don't know what that, you know, percentage growth is, but it's, it's really significant. Anything else that you could point to over that period of time sounds like it was maybe like a three, four year period of time where you were able to kind of experience this growth. Anything that you could point to that was like, hey, this was really helpful.

The audit with Kasey, 100% because there were a lot of things wrong with my website that was probably not helping to my Google rankings. Um, but the, the audit as well as keyword research, I think that that's like, integral because beforehand I was doing things like I wanted to make a lavender blueberry pie. Like, who's looking for that? Literally no one. And while my SEO might have been on point for that specific post, it was just sitting there, like, dormant, not getting any traffic. So I think doing recipes that you love, but finding a place for them, you know, you can add the twist in there. It doesn't necessarily need to be an H1 or even an H2, but put it in your, you know, your recipe list and your key ingredients, and that way you can still do the same recipe while still fitting into some. Fitting it into something that people are actually looking more.

Yeah, there's. There's something that's required for us when we have this mindset of we are marketing the content that we create. We aren't usually content marketers, meaning we're creating content to sell something else. We'll talk about your cookbook in a little bit. We're usually creating content and then marketing it. And part of marketing is novelty. And it feels like that's what you're getting at a little bit, is how do you create novelty in the recipe that you are creating in order to stand out, in order to be different? Because that's what's required with any type of marketing, but especially when you're marketing content in a saturated industry. How did you evolve your brand to get to a point where you said, this is how I'm going to be different, this is how I'm going to be novel? Was that something that kind of happened organically? Did you have to, like, do work around understanding what that was for you?

Honestly, I am not by any stretch of the imagination a marketer or I don't have. I'm a scientist by education. I was a cancer researcher before I did this. I know absolutely nothing about marketing. What I can say is that I've always just stayed true to myself. I've never tried to be someone that I wasn't. And I think that perhaps that that is my quote unquote marketing. But as far as marketing is concerned, like, I just try my best. Like I have somebody who manages my Pinterest. I don't boost my posts on Instagram. I kind of just press in and pray that people like it. But I always try my best to make content that I love. Like if it's, if it looks boring to me, I won't post it. If it's a recipe that kind of falls flat, I won't post it. I just try to make sure that my content is as good as it can possibly be and, and go from there. Well, I mean, also too, I do look at trends. I don't know if that's considered marketing or just, you know, research, but I think there is something to be said, like if Easter is coming up, you should probably look into like, you know, maybe like a lamb or um, whatever, whatever specifically fits in your niche to post during that time that people would, that would appeal to your readers. Yeah, but yeah, I, I'm not any. I have no marketing skills whatsoever. At least none that I have learned or, you know, would consider this to be marketing.

Yeah, I would push back, I would push back against that a little bit. I would say you probably are a marketer. I think you're probably being humble about it because what you've done is you've created a business that you are talking about a product. The product is the content and people are responding to that. And brands are as well. You have these brands who are coming to you and saying like, hey, we're interested in partnering with you on this thing. And so I think maybe not in the traditional sense. There's kind of traditional marketers where you're like building a spreadsheet and you're analyzing content flow. But like, I think what you're doing is marketing and you're having success with it. You know, you're building a multi six figure business and what you're doing is creating a really compelling product, sharing that with the world and people are responding to that. And I think a lot of what it comes back to in this conversation, and it's important to point out is that it's actually not necessarily tactics driven. It's not like, hey, I've done this really unique thing where I boost a post on instagram and then it gets discovered. And when it gets discovered, then I stop boosting it. And then it has this viral, you know, coefficient where two people are sharing it. And it's like, no, actually, it's just. It's product, and the product is the content. And I think sometimes we can get lost in the tactics, and we can say, hey, what's working right now? What's the thing that, you know, is going to, you know, blow up my following or allow me to get a bunch of traffic? And I think if you don't have good content, none of the tactics work. If you do have good content, the tactics will help. And I think what. What you've done, and I think what's important to point out is like leading with the product. The product is the content. The content has to be good after. And I think this is also important. You're hustling to get advice to get insight from industry experts on how to multiply the reach of that content. So within that world, you had talked about a couple different things. One was keyword research. Is there a tool that you especially like, and is that something that you're still doing as a part of your process?

Oh, absolutely. Every day. In fact, I was on KeySearch a couple minutes before we hopped on the call. But I use KeySearch, and I supplement that with SEMrush, just the free version. And I look, you know, what's trending, you know, at specific times of the year when I should post it? Always.

You talk about that specifically. Like, where do you find those trends? And then how do you make a decision around when to post?

Yeah, sure. So, for instance, I was looking up. Oh, goodness. I can actually just check this really quickly.

Love it. Real time.

Let's see. Let's go to my history. I recently looked. Okay, yeah, I post a Cajun seafood gumbo yesterday, and that is currently trending now. And it also trends in December. So I'm kind of always thinking about Q3 and Q4, because those are, you know, when ad spend is most high. And so I tried my best to post things throughout the year that will also trend in, you know, during the holidays, because that maximizes revenue. Um, and so, yeah, I go to KeySearch. I'll stay up.

Which I will say is, like, marketer mindset.

Okay. Like, I'll take it.

I'm gonna. By the. By the end of this call, I'm gonna convince you that you are a marketer.

I will take it. Okay. And so I have a list of. Of things just a really, you know, rudimentary list on my phone, in the notes of recipes that I think of that I want. I write them down and I check them on KeySearch. If they are trending now, I probably will save them for next year. If they trend in the summertime, I'm going to start working on them now. And if they're something that will trend, say next month and in December, if I can fit them in now, I'll post it now. If I can fit it in December, then it's probably going to go up in November. And so that's kind of my thought process. And then, you know, not to be so robotic about everything because there are things that I genuinely just want to post and don't care if they rank because there are things that I enjoy and I think that, you know, my readers would enjoy it as well. But yeah, there, there are times where I just say, hey, this sounds good and I want to post it, so I'm going to do it.

It's like inspired content.

Yeah. And in fact, last year I had just finished my cookbook and I wanted. I really miss blogging because I wasn't able to blog as much as I would have liked because I was writing a cookbook. It's, you know, not to say that that was a bad thing or anything, but I just missed the process.

Takes time.

Yeah, just missed the process of blogging because my blog is my baby. So I felt like I was kind of neglecting it for a little bit. But my first recipe that I released after the cookbook was done was my Nutella Beignets. And I had not gone viral on social media yet. And I literally posted a four second clip of me grabbing a Nutella beignet, opening it up and watching the, you know, the Nutella come out. It was nice and gooey and all that stuff. And it has like 20 million views on Instagram right now.

Wow.

And. But the key, the keyword research on it is like 50. So, you know, it's checks and balances. But yeah, it's one of the interesting.

Things that we need to do as creators is start to understand how content plays in different spaces. And the world of search is massively different than the world of social. And yet within the same day, we are creating on both of those spaces and publishing on both of those spaces. And I think what you said is a really important point because there isn't for somebody who wants to be in both places and there's a lot of people who don't. But for those who want to be in both places. And I think in the current landscape of digital content creation, it's very helpful to have a strong social following as it relates to search. Like those, I think more than ever are interrelated. And so people who do have a strong search follow or social following I think have an advantage within search. Not that it's like you have to have a good social following, but I think it just helps. But your point is, is an important one for. To reflect on because you could have done keyword research for an hour around that specific recipe and came out of it thinking, this probably isn't a good thing for me to post because not a lot of people are searching for it. But if you created a really compelling visual piece of content and that went up on Instagram and that went viral, there's no doubt that that's important for your business and your brand. But and probably bleeds over into search a little bit. Like people are probably doing some version of search around that recipe around your brand. And that's where I think we need to lean into not only being, you know, a scientist, but we also need to think about being an artist and understanding is there something that we can create that would go on social that people would respond to and engage with, knowing that there's going to be some positive ripple effects that come from that for our brand. So I think it's important to point that out because I think it's felt in a very real way for people who have that engagement on social. When you, if you were to rank order the by by importance, the different parts of your business, what does that, what would that look like? Like, would there be something that you'd point out as like the top. And if we, let's say, let's pick five, what would the top five parts of your business be most valuable? Before we continue, let's take a moment to hear from our sponsors. So here's a funny thing. On the Food Blogger Pro podcast, I don't often talk about Food Blogger Pro membership. It's a huge part of what we do. And the reality is the majority of our time as a team is spent thinking about and working with the Food Blogger Pro members. So we wanted to take some time to remind people that if you want to take the next step, like go beyond just this podcast, you can join Food Blogger Pro if you're interested. All you need to do is go to foodbloggerpro.com we're going to tell you more about what a membership entails. And if you're interested in signing up, you can just hit the Join now button. What does that mean? Well, we have a community forum where there's the food blogger, pro, industry experts, many names from which you probably recognize from this podcast. We also have deals and discounts on some of the most popular and important tools for food creators and food bloggers. We have courses that dive deep on photography and video and social media applications. We do live Q&As with industry experts. Like recently we had a conversation with an SEO expert named Eddie from Raptive where he talked about republishing and how to be strategic with your approach to republishing and why that's important. We do these coaching calls where I jump on with a creator and we talk about how we can look at their business and grow their business. And the cool thing is, for those of you who listen to this podcast, we actually have a members only podcast called FBP on the Go where we take some of these video lessons that we're doing, like these coaching calls or these live Q and A with experts, and we roll those up into a podcast. So if you don't have time to sit down and watch those, you can actually just listen to them like you do this podcast. But it's a members only podcast, so if you're interested again, you can go to foodbloggerpro.com and check it out. It's a great next step for anybody who's been listening to the podcast for a long time and wants to dive deeper into growing and building and scaling their business.

Well, just really quickly, I just wanted to speak to a point that you made as far as having a strong social presence and also balancing that with the idea of being an artist as well, because that's how so many of these TikTok trends start. And it also can help with increasing the. What is it called, the volume, the key search, the keyword volume. I think it was like those TikTok cinnamon rolls. And you know, who was looking for that before somebody posted that viral recipe.

Like literally the term TikTok cinnamon rolls.

Yeah.

And then, yeah, like they would be searching cinnamon rolls, they would be searching TikTok, but they're probably before it went viral, there probably wasn't anybody searching. Tick tock cinnamon roll.

Sure. Yeah. And. And that can lead to another, you know, huge opportunity for income because it's viral. Everybody's looking for it and everybody's going to go to your page. And, you know, I think another thing was like the butter boards from. What was that, 2022 2023. And that also kind of exploded. I don't know if it's still, you know, I have not something I've researched recently, but the top five pillars of my business that, that I would deem most valuable. Well, number one is, of course, it's going to be my website. It's my. My firstborn. It's, you know, my main driver of income. Second, I would say is Instagram. For me personally, that's where I've had the most success. I don't really get much of a return on TikTok. Pinterest is okay. Um, and I know Pinterest is a huge driver for a lot of people. Um, thirdly. Oh, you know, let me rearrange that. Second is going to be my email list. I think that that is run honestly, if I could put that number one with my website, I would, because I think that your readers are like your friends and they're going to be like your number one supporters. When, you know, you release a cookbook or you want to do a cooking class or just anything, they're. They're your people. Then it would be the Instagram and then probably the Pinterest. And number five is probably myself because I. Word of mouth. I'm talking about my blog, no matter where.

I love that. I love that. Here's why I love that. I think it's organic. Conversation with other people around our goals and our ambitions is really underrated. And can you talk a little bit more about how you talk about what you're doing with other people and why that's beneficial?

It's so funny, because a lot of people are. They still cannot wrap their heads around the concept that people make money off of a blog. But, I mean, I will find a way to inch in the conversation about my blog at any moment's notice. Even getting my hair done, you know, my hairdresser will say, oh, yeah, you. I saw your Instagram. You have a food blog. Yeah, I actually do have a food blog. This is why you should.

Perfect opportunity to talk about it.

Yeah. And a lot of people don't think that I take my own pictures. And I'm just like, nope, it's. It's all me. You know, if. If, for instance, if I'm getting my nails done, it. This happened two weeks ago. The nail tech said that she really loves Bolognese. And I'm like, really? You should try my short rib bolognese. It's on my blog. If I'm out at the holiday party, I'll just strike up conversation with the person that I'm sitting next to. And I'll say, yeah, you know, what do you do? And they say, oh, I don't know, I'm. I work in tech. And I'm like, oh, okay, that's nice. And of course they're going to say, what do you do? And I'm like, oh, blue blogger. And the name of my blog is Brittany Rick Brett, you should go to it. You know, this is how you spell it. And you know, not specifically in that. Yeah, I make it as organic and not as pushy as. As I'm explaining, but, you know, you find a way to kind of smush it in there.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. And.

And do you find. Because this is what I think happens, whether it's talking about what we're doing or a lot of times it's like something I'm trying to figure out. Like a problem I'm working through is naturally what happens when you share that with somebody is they go to work trying to make connections or, you know, if it's a problem that you share, it's trying to understand the problem to help, like, figure out a solution. And. And naturally that's what people do. What do you do when you are doing that? Do you perceive the benefit to be kind of like, hey, they might visit and become a follower, or is it something beyond that? Like, then they might share it with other people. What is, what does that look like when you think about kind of sharing it out in the world?

I think truly it's both. You know, I think we hope for both. And if it's just one, then that's great. If it's neither, then I did my best. But yeah, the hope is always that, you know, someone will one visit and to share a recipe or just a link simply saying, I made this recipe, it tasted really good and you should try it too. Yeah.

Yeah, that's great. So where does. Tell me about your cookbook and would that be like 6, 7? Would that be on the list?

It would be on the list because I feel like, you know, my cookbook. Here it is, by the way.

Love it.

Yeah, it was such a fun experience. I always wanted to do a cookbook because I figured, you know, it's one thing to be in a digital space and another thing to be in people's kitchens permanently. Even if it's in someone's kitchen and collecting dust, it's there and they support it and hopefully made something out of it. But the cookbook came about, I was actually like four months pregnant and My friend from Big from Scratch magazine, Brian Hart Hoffman, he reached out and I was. I was actually talking on my Instagram stories about how I wanted to do an ebook. I'd done an ebook back in 2020, and I was gonna do another one because I knew it was gonna be on maternity leave, and I wanted something to generate income without me having to constantly either do sponsored work or have to, you know, upload recipes. So I said, okay, I'm gonna do an ebook. And, you know, I was asking people what did they want to see in the ebook. It was gonna be primarily baking. And he said, you wanna write a cookbook, I hear. And I said, yeah, I really, really wanna write a cookbook. And we had a conversation. And out of that conversation, he offered me a deal. And of course, I wasn't ever gonna say no. And it was just. It's just been, like, such a dream come true to just have this book of recipes.

Yeah.

You know, in my kitchen with me and knowing I can look at all the photos and I know exactly where I was when. You know, these are roast sugar churros. And, you know, it's. It's such. Another thing about the cookbook, too, is that I feel like as someone who does keyword research, at times it can kind of stump your creativity because, again, you find things that fit within a certain place. And with the cookbook, you can basically do whatever you want to do. These are recipes that I love, recipes that I've written down years and years ago, just waiting for an opportunity for them to come to fruition and see the light of day. So that's where this baby comes.

Love that. Bake until golden brown. We'll link to it in the show notes as well. I think there's all of these benefits that come from a book. One is, and you alluded to this a little bit, almost the psychology and a contrast against building a digital business, which is like, having a physical thing. There's, like, a legacy component to it. It's showing up in a physical form as opposed to just a digital form. And I think that's, like, unquantifiable but undeniable. I think there's also a business benefit, which is, like, as a creator who has a traditionally published book, like, there is something that inevitably allows you to be perceived. Yeah. There's, like, a trust component to it, and I think part of that might fall over into the, like, world of search. It's, like, hard to know all of those pieces, you know, come together, but with people for sure, as well. Like people who come to your site and see that you have a traditionally published cookbook. What did you learn in the process, like, that you would do the same or do different if you were to do it again?

I think in the process of compiling recipes and things like that and baking, of course, there's always technical things that I've learned along the way. I won't bore you with them, because it's. A lot of things are just, you know, how to mix ingredients and temperature control and, you know, your oven temperature and things like that. I think I became such a better baker, but more so.

It's like the technical skills, you refined those.

Yeah, yeah, because there was. There's 105 recipes in here. And in order to bring to light the things that mattered the most to me, the recipes that I really wanted to be in the book, there were certain things that I had to learn. I'm not a trained pastry chef, and there are things that I had to step back, become a student again, and learn how to do certain things, and it all paid off. I can, you know, basically feel like I could bake anything at this point. Are there certain things that are a little harder for me? Sure. But I feel like, you know, coming out of the process, I feel like I can literally make anything.

And that was like, forged in the fire of deliverables. And it's a different type of pressure when you're doing a cookbook like that.

I would also say that writing the cookbook helped with my blogging process and that I can make two to three recipes in a day and just learn how to map out my day. What's in the oven, what can be on the stove, Is there anything that can set in the fridge? And I can just kind of plan out my recipes in that way. Just the processes that I can now work through as opposed to just starting something. One thing, start to finish. So I'm able to. To roll out more recipes, you know, on. On a. Almost daily basis as opposed to before. But one thing I will say I would probably have done better. This is the marketing component, because that's why I say I'm not a marketer. I wish that I could have done more. More about amplifying the book. I did. I kind of. When it came to building the recipes and creating the content and the photos and things like that, I felt very, very confident in doing so. However, I was just not sure how to get people to buy the book. You have to say, hey, this book is phenomenal. Please buy it. And in fact, like that kind of is my strategy right now. You know, I love the book so much, but I just don't. I don't know how to always market to people to get them to, you know, to, to, to buy in the digital space. I went to a, I did a flea market. My friend Wild Berry, her name is Bridget, she has a wall, she does a big market. And she was gracious enough to give me a stand for one of her field days. And I sold like 20 books that day. And I was so. I was ecstatic about it, you know. Yeah, people came to my stand. 60% of the people that I met with bought and some people bought two. So, you know, if that's something that I could change and something that I could learn for, should I do a subsequent book? I would like to either take like a class or hire someone or you know, something of that magnitude so that I can push the book further.

Yeah, it's almost like there's this switch that happens, and we kind of talked about this earlier where it's like you had developed these skills and this expertise around marketing your content. But there's a shift that happens once you do have an actual product and now you are creating content that needs to be content marketing for a product. So it's that shift from marketing content to content marketing and that suddenly feels very different. And the other hard thing is it's an expectation shift with your audience. Like they are used to getting a thing, that thing is free. The way as a business that we monetize is like we work with the brand or we monetize via ads. And now suddenly it's like, oh, I need to put a credit card in and like buy a thing, otherwise I don't get it. And that's a big shift in terms of how we are crafting and creating content. So what you're saying makes complete sense. The other thing that is this new reality is for the most part it feels like publishers expectation is that you are the one doing the marketing and the selling. And it's not necessarily like they're going to put a huge amount of effort and a massive team behind this. It seems like most common now, I'm not an expert in books, but it seems like most common now is this expectation that you have a following and you are going to promote that and you know, sell this thing, which I think is oftentimes harder than people think. It's like I have, you know, 50,000 followers or 100,000 followers, I'm going to create this product, CPG product, cookbook whatever it might be. Oh, I don't know, maybe like 10% of my audience is going to buy it. And it's like, oh, actually that'd be a pretty good conversion rate, actually. Yeah.

And the difficult part about that too is that, you know, the algorithm is, you know, say you have even 500,000 followers, how many of those people are actually seeing that content? Furthermore, how many, how, how many. How many of those people who actually see the content will actually translate that into going to your website and, or, you know, a website, Amazon, whatever, and actually buying said product.

Yeah.

So that, that's tricky.

And I was just having a friend conversation with a friend last week who does a lot of cookbook sales. He has kind of a publisher type business. And he was talking about, you know, they've tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of cookbooks that they've sold. But he's like marketer first, food person second. He's partnering with people, but he comes in as a marketer. And a lot of what they're doing is like paid advertising and funnels and events and things like that. And I think maybe that's what you're getting to a little bit when you say not a marketer, not a specific type of marketer, maybe. And I think for most of us who are really good at organic, to get into the world of paid is a very different game. And it's like, ooh, man, like, I'm gonna pay for a thing. And suddenly you're, you know, you have the risk of you. And I had another friend who had a course. It's like he paid 100,000 in a year and he made 90,000. Like, you start to get into that world where there is that potential risk. And so it's a very different game. But I think your takeaway is a good one for anybody who's thinking about it, which is to understand that's a very different game to market a product. Yeah. So how about that? You know, you talked about your website, email list, Pinterest, Instagram, yourself is kind of the most valuable, you know, platforms that you have or canvases to create on. How about this? And it might be related a little bit, but sources of revenue, like if you were to say your top three most important sources of revenue, my guess is the first one would be the website. Would second be brand partnerships and sponsorships. And are you still. Is that something you're still pursuing? It sounds like yes.

It's not something that I'm actively pursuing, but it is something that I will entertain.

So if you get inbound, you'll have those conversations.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's not something that I am always very excited to do unless it's, you know, a brand that, again, I'm already, you know, working with or a product that I'm. I'm using very often. There are a couple of brands I think I might cold pitch this year because I do love their products so much and I do spend a lot of money on them, so it would be aligned for me to work with them. But I'm not actively pursuing brands, and my third revenue stream would be the cookbook in my e. Cookbooks.

Sure. Yep. Can you talk about on the brand side of things, what does that look like? Like a brand's reaching out through Instagram. And if it is a brand that's aligned, how do you handle that process? Because I think we all can have so much to learn from our respective processes and systems for working with brands and sponsors.

Yeah. So if I receive an email from a brand that I think would be a good fit to work with, you know, I literally ask them what they're looking for, what's their timeline, what's their budget, most importantly, and then we kind of negotiate further. Is I see if their timeline is going to fit with my schedule or if I have to move a couple of things around and it's worth it to do so, then I will do it. I will accommodate that. If it's something that, even though it's a brand that I like, if it's not something that I can accommodate, or if the money is under a certain threshold and it's just not worth it to me, then I. It's not something that I'll take on.

Sure. Um, and are you doing that all on your own, like putting together an agreement and doing the negotiation? Uh, yeah. What's your advice for people who kind of want to do that but maybe feel intimidated?

Um, I am a team of not many. It's just. It's me. And I have someone who helps out with my blog posts, writing every once in a while. And Simple PIN Media manages my Pinterest. But all the other stuff is just me.

Love it.

So, yeah, I'm doing all the negotiating, responding to emails, reviewing the contracts, and yeah, all that fun stuff.

What for somebody who's never done. Let's say they get inbound, they've never done a negotiation. You know what, what's your advice for them on how to handle that? Well, and also you talked a little bit before we press record around, like, thinking strategically around potentially Turning a one off deal. Hey, could you do a blog post? Could you do an Instagram reel into something that's a little bit more long term if you could speak to those two things.

So if it's your first time receiving, you know, an email from a company and they would like to work with you, I would say don't be afraid to name your price and don't undercut yourself because if they're reaching out, clearly they already are enjoying your content and clearly you have something unique to offer. So that would be my number one with the bullet. Number two would be stick to the timeline. And if you are interested in parlaying that one project into a sustainable relationship where you're getting more work, I would say perhaps give them a little bit more than what they're asking for. I try to do this with almost all of the brands that I work with because I always like to provide more than less or even not less, but you know, just what they're asking for. This prevents the need to reshoot. It prevents the need to have a ton of back and forth. So I'll. I won't say I supply everything. I think that that's. You may be undercutting yourself on that. But it's important to give them just a tiny bit more than what they asked for so that they can see that there's value in your work and to translate that into more posts. I actually very much did this last year. At the beginning of the year, there was a brand that I love working with and they did not want to meet my price. And I told them that I would throw in a blog post to supplement or to justify the price. Gave them my blog stats and they agreed to it. So I would say use your metrics to your advantage. Especially if there ever is a time where a brand says, oh no, that's too much, or, you know, it's not something we can accommodate right now, we'll reach back out and you say, hold on, wait a second, I can throw this in too. If you, if it's, if it's within, if it's within reason, you know, that's great.

Love that. We had a conversation on the podcast with Justin Moore, who wrote a book called Sponsor Magnet. One of the things he talks about is understanding the brand's needs so you can craft a deliverable for them that matches those needs. And it sounds like, you know, there's budget considerations always, but then deliverables as well. And if you feel like it's within reason to increase deliverables in Order to justify budget. That's like a great negotiation strategy as opposed to just coming down on budget. Like, I think it's wise to, like, look at all those multiple angles like that. And a good reminder for us as we have those conversations with brands. So, Brittany, it's been really fun for me to hear your story, especially because it's inspiring to think about, like, hey, what does it look like to get after it? Like, to learn from experts, to have those conversations around things that you could do better, but then also to continually show up every day, which it sounds like you've really done. And you've done it by not having a team of five people running around. It's like you are the person doing it, which is a good reminder as well. Like, you have a family, you're making time for them, and you're doing this hard work as well. So it's inspiring to see you, like, achieve those things that it seems like you set out to achieve. What does the next two, three, four years look like for you as you start to look out? What are the things that you're starting to think about doing? Or is it kind of like, hey, I'm going to continue to do what I'm doing and see what it looks like to just press repeat on that, to continue with it?

Yeah, for the most part, I think I would like to continue doing what I'm already doing. I'm happy. I'm having fun. I'm playing with food and doing fun recipes, and it seems to be resonating with my readers. And so that's awesome. But maybe we'll have another cookbook to come out soon.

Love it. All right, little tease. We can have you back on. That would be awesome when that happens. That's great. And then how about if you were to go back 2020, right. As you're starting to get into it, what would your advice be to yourself if you were to go back and have a conversation, you know, with Britney 2020 version?

Yeah, I think back then, I really wish that I would. Had. Would have had more direction because at the time I was again, working a corporate job and that was my main focus. But it's also difficult, too, because I. I had so much fun doing the food stuff and the Instagram thing. And it was. It was also a really unique time because the pandemic was, you know, afoot. And, you know, I think everybody was kind of just. Everybody was on Instagram because there's nothing else to do, and everybody was, you know, pinning things. So it was a bit of a interesting time. But yeah, I would, I would probably just say to myself to enjoy it but perhaps have more of a direction in what you want this to become.

Yep, that's great and got there eventually. But it's like what you're saying is fast track that. Like hey, focus in on a specific thing. Maybe it's like lean into the business component of it a little bit more around keyword research and like kind of the, the, the science or research part of it which you already naturally are that which I think yeah makes a lot of sense. So for anybody who wants to follow along with what you're doing to connect with you, buy the cookbook. Like where's the best place to do that?

So you can go to brittanybreakspread.com it's B R I T N E Y breaksbread.com and all the information, all my recipes can be found there. You can order the cookbook, you can find all of my social media links and lots of fun things to cook too.

Cool. Brittany, thanks so much for coming on. It was great to talk to you.

Thank you for having me.

Hey there, this is Emily from the Food Blogger Pro team. Thank you so much for listening to that episode of the podcast. We are kicking off a brand new month and spring is just around the corner so I wanted to hop in and update you on what you can expect to see in the Food Blogger Pro membership this month. If you are not yet a Food Blogger Pro member, we would love to have you. The Food Blogger Pro membership is filled with incredible resources for for all types of food creators. We have courses, monthly, live Q&As, monthly coaching calls, a member forum, and lots of experts in the food blogging space who are always available to answer your questions. And if you already are a Food Blogger member, here's what you'll see in the membership this month. On Thursday, March 6, we have a brand new coaching call that will be going live on the site and on Food Blogger Pro on the Go, our members only podcast. This coaching call will be with Shaima from the Spice Spoon and is a really great call for longtime food bloggers who are looking looking to breathe new life into their food blog, update old posts or just think about their business in a fresh way. Next up we have an updated course that will be going live on Thursday, March 13. We will be giving a huge facelift to our affiliate marketing course. We're really excited about it and definitely check it out. Last but not least, in March we'll be hosting our live Q and a on Thursday, March 20th. This Q& A will be all about the business of blogging. We'll be chatting LLCs, contracts and website policies for food creators with our great legal expert Danielle List. While it's perhaps not the most exciting topic, it's a super valuable topic for all business owners and food creators and you won't want to miss it. And that's what we have on deck for this month. It's going to be a really great month in the membership. We're looking forward to it, and if you would like to join us, just head to foodbloggerpro.com membership to learn more.

Sam.