How You Can Make Money as a Food Writer with Dianne Jacob | The Food Blogger Pro Podcast

How are you seeing other food writers and food creators earning income? We talk about blogging. That's one piece of it. But can you speak to some of the other ways that people can be thinking about income generation around food and food writing?

Well, I think first, first of all, writing as a profession is not led by business people. That is like the understatement of the year. Right. I mean, people write because they have something to say and they want to be creative. It's like painting. Okay, sure. And so that's where all the food writing stuff was for a long time. There were some people who could manage to get a full time job, like restaurant critics, but for everybody else it was more of a hobby. And this big shift in maybe the last 10 years has been by people with an entrepreneurial mindset. And the ones who are succeeding, the ones who have six figure incomes are think are not just creative people, they're entrepreneurs and they understand how to have a business. And they have. Their business is selling recipes. And I think bloggers actually have created this. I mean, they're not even called bloggers anymore. I mean, like you and Lindsey are not bloggers. You're sort of Internet entrepreneurs in the food space.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But blogging isn't the right word.

Right. And food Blogger Pro isn't a great name for what we talk about, which is like. Yeah, something we've mentioned a few different times. But it reaches so far beyond just blogging.

Exactly.

Yeah, Tracking.

So it's really, it's, it's a business. And I think, you know, that's really new in the writing world that you could have a business that makes money. But I still think most writers don't really have that mindset because so much of food writing before was about writing for free. And even, even as bloggers, you put all this free content on the Internet. So. Yeah, so the shift has been that people are still writing for free, but they figured out how to monetize it.

Yes. Right, yeah. Because you're publishing content, it's free, as it always was. The thing that has changed is the ability to create income around free content with ads or sponsored content or affiliate or whatever it might be.

It was, you know, it's a providence of almost entirely white women because white women had the luxury of creating content either for free or for very little money. And so that has been one of the shifts that's really interesting to me is that the Internet created a space now for different kinds of people to just kill it on Instagram, on the Internet. Like, you know, walks. I mean, and they're not. They're not married. They're not women who depend on someone else for income. You know, walks of life. Just one cookbook. Those are amazingly huge sites by Asian Americans who circumvented all the gatekeepers and built a huge business.

Yes.

And that's a different. A different model, but they're still giving away free content, which is what writers have always done, it seems, or been very badly paid for content because the assumption was, well, you're doing this, you know, you. You're reviewing a restaurant for fun, and you get to eat the meal. So, you know, I'm gonna pay you, you know, $40 or, you know, if you'd like to write for me, write whatever you want, and then I'm gonna pay you nothing. Or $25.

Yeah, right.

You know, so that. I mean, that is still happening, but at least there is this corner of our industry where. Where people have figured out where people are entrepreneurial and figured out how to be successful.

Yeah. It's one of the great things about the Internet. Right. Anybody can start whatever they want. Blog, an Instagram account, TikTok can start creating content, and it's kind of democratized the ability to do that. And to your point, less gatekeepers. Although I would. There's probably still. I would say there's still those certain gates or gatekeepers that exist but are just publishing. Yeah, yeah. And. Or wherever it might be, whether it be, you know, sponsored content or advertising or who knows, you know, but still exist just in different ways. But it changed significantly and really encouraging to be able to see that. One of the things that you had talked about was this idea of this marriage of entrepreneurial mindset with creative mindset. And what if somebody is just creative? There's a lot of those people and they have this incredible ability, but they don't necessarily have the ability to package that up in a way that translates into dollars. So is that kind of a hopeless situation for those people?

Oh, no.

Do they. What do they do? How do they approach that?

Well, first of all, if they're enjoying being creative, a lot of people are very satisfied having a hobby where they, you know, they're on Instagram as a hobby or they're on TikTok as a hobby. And. And that's fine. And.

Yeah, exactly as you would guitar player, if you like playing guitar.

Yeah.

You go home, you play 45 minutes an hour, you love it. You're in a band, but you're not. Like, how do we make as much money as possible from this show tonight. It's like, no, I just want to, like, play for a live audience.

Exactly. So.

Right.

So I think all creative pursuits are the same in that way. And then at some point, sometimes people decide that they want more than that, but a lot of people don't. A lot of people are perfectly happy to do something on the side and for fun.

Yep, Yep. Yeah, it's interesting.

I think, of, like, failures.

Yeah, well, finish that thought.

Yeah, no, it's not. It's not a sign of failure. It's. It's your hobby.

Yes. I love that. And I think sometimes I think about, like, what would this podcast be like if Lindsey was doing it? Because you talk about kind of the entrepreneurial side of a business and then the creative side of the business. If this was Lindsey, this podcast would look very different. And she'd be talking about creative, she'd be talking about recipe development, she'd be talking about writing and photography. But because my interests, like, bend towards entrepreneurial finance, business building, it's kind of where we naturally talk. And I think, therefore, podcast listeners would maybe kind of bend in that way as well. But without the creative things that Lindsay's doing, like. Like, if I'm 2xing 0, like, it's still going to be 0. And. But what Lindsay. What Lindsey's doing is, like, putting something there that allows there to be growth, which. Which is the biggest luxury that somebody who likes business can have is somebody who, like, creates the raw material and assets that then you can say, okay, great. How do we be strategic with ads for this? And that's, like, a relatively easy job compared to creating really good content in the world. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts for. So in one category. Hey, if you are doing this and you are satisfied in the pursuit of this as a creative endeavor, that's a win, and you can stop there, and that can be your thing, and that's awesome. And end of story. There's also going to be a camp of people who are, like, great, all of those things. And I want to figure out how to be entrepreneurial and how to grow this. But maybe they don't feel like that's a muscle they want to build or, like, a skill that they have and want to pursue. So in situations like that, what would your advice be? Or what do you even see with some of the people you work and coach in regards to how they can partner with somebody or maybe coach, be coached by somebody. You know, you do some of that. What's your advice? For the creatives who don't necessarily want to be the entrepreneurial person but want to be building an entrepreneurial thing.

Well, you know, for example, there are a lot of freelance writers who want to be paid more and get into bigger publications and for some reason they don't seem to be bloggers. It seems like there's just different groups, right?

Yep.

And those people are hard, they're hardcore writers. But they still, it's still a side hustle for most of them because it's just, it's almost impossible to make a living full time writing articles.

Yeah.

So, you know, for example, I have. There was a student years ago came to me who wanted start freelancing. So we started in small publications and that didn't pay any money. Then she got into the Washington Post, then she got into a national magazine then. Then, you know, so it built and built and she got paid better. But she still has a full time job.

Yep.

And this is on the side.

Yeah.

So some things, the model is just not really there to make a lot of money. So I would say the model is there with blogging and being an info. I don't really understand how influencers make money other than sponsored. Sponsored content, I guess really the main way. Right.

Yeah.

And it's not about ads.

Right. I think there's some platforms that are starting to like Snapchat's experimenting with paying creators who have, you know, a snap that goes. Snap. I don't even know. Is that what they're called? I don't use Snapchat at all but. Or like YouTube, you can run ads against it and yes, earn ad income obviously. But yeah, I think for the most part the understanding is like if you have a following on a social platform, you are either creating an income from sponsored content or you have some product that you're selling. Kind of the ultimate example being like the Jenner Kardashian families.

But also the ultimate.

But also maybe it's like, you know, you have, I'm trying to think like maybe it's somebody who has a huge food following and you create a cookware line or we've interviewed some bloggers who start to create like their own, have their own olive oil that they're branding and things like that. So yeah, I feel like sponsored content and then for a select percentage it's their own product, which is obviously a new level of involvement.

Yeah, true. Okay. So there's there are, there are, there are Internet ways to get income from ads or sponsors. But then there's all. But then there's like the freelance writing, which leads to, you know, most of the time is you're not going to be compensated for the amount of time you put in for a story. But then some of those people have been able to get work as content creators. That's the term content creators, which is very vague to me, but basically it means, you know, working. Working for corporations doing some kind of food writing, like white papers, research, writing recipes, working with them as the person who hires influencers or doing their social media. There's all that kind of work, too. That can be very lucrative.

Yeah. Do you see anybody or do you know of any food writers who have created like a Substack account, so like a paid newsletter subscription that are kind of doing that as their. As their main form of income? It's something that, yes, it would be the opposite of what we had talked about before, where it's like writing for free. Now it's like only writing to be paid for it. And can you explain how that works for people who aren't familiar with what that is?

Okay, so Substack is a company where you can have a newsletter that's free. It starts, it's. It's always free. But then there is a paid option. And so if. If there's a paid option, then you have to produce more content that is only for paying subscribers. So the person at the top of that food chain right now is Alison Roman. Remember Alison Roman? She was a recipe writer for the New York Times and Bon Appetit and all that. And then there was this huge takedown where she kind of got canceled. But she. I get her free Substack newsletter, and it's terrific. She's. She's absolutely hilarious. She doesn't take herself too seriously. You know, she's had a lot of therapy. And she talks about that she's still alive, which is good because it was really horrific. So she's at the top. And she does a paid. She has a paid version and a free version. And she also does a video that goes with her recipe. And then there are. I think Alicia Kennedy is maybe number two. And she's, you know, a big thinker, I guess is what I call her. She writes essays about veganism, about, you know, the corporate food business, thinking deep thoughts. And she has to come up with a lot of deep thoughts because she recently interviewed me, and she had three interviews that week plus whatever she was writing. So it has become. I think she probably makes around 50,000 a year just from her newsletter. And then there's whatever else she has going on on the side. She got asked to teach a class recently. She's working on a book about veganism. So that's how she's making her living.

Yeah, it feels I'd be I'm gonna throw something out there and I want to hear your thoughts on Seems like as people are think contemplating who do I want to be in the world online and do I want this to be my full time thing or not? There's, there's a few different variables in that equation. I'm going to name off a few and I'd be interested to hear if there's any others that you would add to it. One would be am I trying to do this as like my career or am I okay with it being a hobby? Another one would be do I want that? Do I want to be the building a thing like Pinch of Yam? Do I want to be building a blog or a following or do I want to be building a career as a writer? And it doesn't matter if you know, I'm front and center and people are following me or I just get to write and that's what I want to do. Similar to that like guitar playing. I just want to put my fingers to a keyboard and express my thoughts and ideas about something. Doesn't matter if I'm a follower, have a following or not. And once you know that, figuring out where is then the best place to do this full time, not full time. Do I just want to work on the thing that I'm passionate about or do I want to build a brand, a blog, a following? Then where is that avenue in terms of the best place to fully live out that desire or that goal? Is there anything you would would add to that as people kind of contemplate how they want to work within the world and the world of food?

Well, I would say that you have tremendous privilege just to entertain those options because if you're a single mother, you can think about all these things that you would like to do. But yes, the bottom line is you have to bring in X amount of money while raising your child.

Yes. And with almost no bandwidth or margin.

Yeah. And I have worked with people in those situations where they're juggling lots of different things and you know, maybe they have a catering business on the side or and they're just trying to figure out how to make it work to bring in the income and all these disparate things that they do don't really add up to enough money but they love doing them. I work with Somebody one time who she hired me for. I have a five hour minimum. She hired me for five hours. She spent all five hours working on one piece because she really wanted to write this one piece of writing an essay with a recipe at the end.

Yeah.

And you know, she was running a food pantry on the side. She was. She had a grown, a grown kid and two young kids. I don't know. She had like 20 things going on simultaneously and none of them were bringing enough income. So that's what I'm saying about the privilege of being able to choose things regardless of how much money they bring in. I think we need to be more aware of that, first of all, that you're really fortunate that you even get to have those conversations, have that conversation.

Or to be thinking about that. Yeah. And a follow up question to that would be if somebody does find themselves in that position, to use a really basic example, single parent raising their kids, working like period. For most people, that's going to be maxed out. What does that look like? Is it tabling the thing or the thing meaning like your, your passion or your goal or is it. Or is it like setting realistic expectations?

Yeah.

What, what does that look like if you are in that situation?

Well, it's kind of soul crushing to table it, like. And I feel like sometimes I'm a part of that because sometimes someone has just started and they want to write a book and they have no. I said, well, okay, a book means that you have. It means that you have to be a writer to write a book. Okay. That's how it works. So what evidence do you have for a publisher that you are a writer?

Twitter bio.

And they don't have any, but they still want to write a book. So, you know, I think sometimes it is a little soul crushing for someone like me to say, well, this is not step one.

Yeah.

You have to build towards this point because people are always contacting me and saying I want to write a book. And that has nothing to do with whether they're ready to write a book or whether they will be perceived by a publisher as someone who can write a book. They're not the same thing. I mean, someone could be teaching kids how to cook and have done that for several years, but they have no. And they could probably write a book about how to teach kids to cook and be in the kitchen more. But if they have no social media platform and they've never published a recipe, publisher is going to be like, well, how do we know that you can pull this off?

Yeah, the greatest predictor of future behavior is past behavior.

Exactly.

If you haven't. Don't have a strong history of past behavior that's aligned with what you're pitching somebody on, it's gonna be. It's gonna be hard for them to sign off on it.

Exactly. And so you kind of have to be the person who wrote the book before you even write the book, because that way you're, like, the most obvious person for the job.

Yeah.

So, like, if you're an influencer who puts recipes in every Instagram post and you build a big following, you seem like someone who could produce a book based on that.

Right.

So that's a good risk for a publisher. So, yeah, you still have to. I mean, you still have to have your dreams, but you have to be realistic about. Whether someone else thinks you can pull it off.

Yeah. Yeah. And I would say one of the phrases or concepts that I've talked about in the podcast before is that people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in 10 years. And I think that as. As you think about your dream or your goal or your, you know, the thing that you would love to be in the world, I would encourage people to think about working on it as much as possible in the moment, but also to not have this compression, compressed aspiration in terms of, like, I want to be at this point in six months. Not that that's a bad thing, but. Yeah, but to your point about the reality of what margin looks like and privilege around being able to daydream, like, what do I want to be in the world? You know, to. To hold both truths at the same time, hey, now is like a really difficult time, and I don't have a lot of margin. And realistically, due to the effort that it does take to manifest this thing within the world might not be realistic, but like you said, doesn't mean table it. Maybe it just looks different. And instead of thinking about it as, like, am I going to do this in the next three months? Maybe it's the next three years. Or instead of thinking about one year, maybe it's 10 years. And I think there's some things you can do that kind of sharpen the tools in your tool belt. So when the time does come, if you do have more of that margin, or as seasons change and maybe kids aren't in school and then they are in school or whatever it might be the everybody situate, there's thousands of different situations to consider. But, yeah, even little things like listening to a podcast or, you know, on a drive or maybe when you're doing the dishes or it's all kind of sharpening the tools in your tool belt. So my encouragement to people who do have that goal or aspiration would be to not let go of it, but also to be gentle with yourself in terms of the realistic amount of traction that you can get with limited margin and capacity. So I appreciate your, your thoughts around that and important reminder and the reality for a lot of people always so.