This is about to get LONG and personal. Brew a cup of tea, grab a Raw Cookie Dough Bar and settle in. We’re about to dive in deep with my history with blogging up until now. And if you aren’t ready to read about my income (or lack thereof) and me dumping all over myself…scroll down to a previous blog post for some treats. Cheers!
I’ve been blogging for over 8 ½ years now. It’s safe to say that’s the longest job I’ve ever held and my longest relationship ever. Blogging has been my everything. My identity. Who I am. Who I was.
I’ll be 100% transparent. When I started blogging, it was before the surge of social media. Before Twitter, way before Instagram. Having a blog wasn’t super common, and saying you had a blog got a lot of “what’s that?” questions.
I started blogging as a creative outlet. I was floundering in school, my parents had moved away from me, I was single and I just wanted to hole up and bake. I wanted to bake, share treats and recipes with my classmates, and show my mom what I was up to without talking to her on the phone twelve times a day.
I didn’t start making real money off of my blog for a couple years. I am 100% tech illiterate, so it took me a long time to figure out how to place ads on my blog. I also landed my first sponsored recipe post with Chex, after I published a recipe that caught their eye (I will never forget Amanda Paa reaching out to me and negotiating that first deal).
You have to understand, at this time blogging was so much easier. It wasn’t EASY, it was just easier tech-wise. I used a point and shoot camera. I didn’t edit my photos. I added text on top of my photos and people loved it. It was simple, fun and very raw.
Things started to gain momentum. I picked up sponsored recipes for Chex and KitchenAid. I went on a sponsored retreat. I switched to a DSLR that I still can barely use and switched to WordPress and owning my own domain and having a web host (good grief). People still did things as favors…like, my website was designed out of the kindness of a stranger in a Facebook group I was in. My header was redesigned several times by an old friend back home.
I made the most money in years 2014 and 2015. I’m not talking buku bucks, I’m talking thousands. As someone who started a blog before it could equal making six figures, this was astounding and so exciting for me. It felt like I could turn this into something huge! I felt like a real food blogger.
But…something happened. I’m still not sure what.
I got left behind.
My friends who started blogs around the same time as me either quit or made the five or six figures. I had a baby. And my mind started drowning in being a mom, a wife AND knowing the nuances of blogging.
[But I have to say, I was never upset about my friends’ successes. Or my virtual acquaintances’ successes. I have always been in awe of them! Being a food blogger or a blogger in any category is hard work! I’ll always be in awe of those who get it done.]
People started to hire virtual assistants to manage their social media and/or pay bots to get fake likes and followers. Suddenly, posting anything and everything on Instagram wasn’t ok and you had to have 10,000 followers to be considered “good enough” for Instagram to let you link your own blog posts in Stories…
You have to have a certain number of words in each post for Google to like it. You have to have forms filled out before posting which highlight your keywords and all this weird techy crap. There’s the switch to https and the GDPR and a TON of other things I wish I never set eyes on because I have to teach myself what all of it is and make it happen, all just to post a recipe I hope you like! Or to tell you how much I love my new face wash…or to share with you any baby products you need to try!
There are a lot of bloggers out there that do all the right things. They hire assistants. They watch their reader numbers and how many people click on their website everyday. They got in with the right ad networks and companies love them for sponsored work. Or luck was on their side and they had a recipe go viral before ALL this extra stuff mattered, and they just stayed on top. That just isn’t me, I’ve come to accept.
The ad network I was with suddenly filed for bankruptcy and all my ads and revenue (just hundreds now) was gone. Companies I was working with consistently suddenly stopped emailing back, so the sponsored work was gone.
The first few times I had to acknowledge that being a food blogger was no longer my job, it was my “hobby” again, stung. Bad. Not telling people I’m a recipe developer, food photographer and blogger makes my stomach churn…but also, if I DO tell people that’s what I do, I feel like a fraud.
My husband does our taxes and let me know when it happened. I cried and cried over the reality of what I pour my time and energy into.
He asked me point blank if I was still serious about blogging and where the money went. With 100% honesty, I had to tell him it just wasn’t in my cards. I work hard. I email companies all the time with no response or poor response (a company telling me they have “no budget” to pay me for my work when they pay a friend of mine is SO common to me now). I don’t have the time (now having two babies) to sit on Instagram for hours at night liking and commenting more than I do, so I don’t have the followers. And I don’t have the money for an assistant, so breaks in social media posting are true breaks for me, and people forget about you in a break.
I remember applying for a new ad network in early 2016, feeling so ready to turn a new leaf and get my revenue up. I was denied after I saw my pageviews were a fraction of what they were just two years beforehand. I was embarrassed and just so sad.
I still post recipes though. I can’t stop. It’s just what I do. It’s what I KNOW I’m good at.
My site hasn’t been redesigned in five years (did you know that can cost THOUSANDS of dollars?). I no longer have a recipe plugin that lets you ‘push to print’ after the company that ran my last one went under. My posts are rarely sponsored. I make like $20 a month from my Amazon affiliate ads. Every like, follow and share you see under my social media is from ME personally. And every product I talk about is something I legit buy.
I still receive a few “gifts” from companies, which is nice but still doesn’t allow me to be a helpful member of my family income-wise. I still email brands I love and ask to work together. A lot. I still hear ‘no’ 99.9% of the time because my numbers aren’t appealing. I still cry over not being good enough anymore.
In not saying anything about this “behind the scenes” business, I have been feeling like a fraud. I don’t want people to know that ALL of this work is something I do at a crazy expense to me (because it is), but I also don’t want people thinking I’m some huge success when I’m not. Don’t get me wrong, I wish I were! But I’m just not, and I feel a need to be very transparent about that.
And maybe my point, among other things, is THANK YOU. Thank you to my readers, whether you’ve only read one post or you’ve been reading for years. To my friends and family who read, to strangers who read and comment, to strangers who don’t comment, to my Instagram tribe, thank you.
I love this honest post. Damn!! Blogging is tough. It’s a numbers game. If I’m being honest, l don’t love it on a daily basis like I use to. I miss all the personal stuff. It’s all about branding, likes and comments. I am fortunate to make it my living. I just sometimes wish for those cozy days, before Instagram became microblogging – and now it seems even more important than our blogs that we all worked so hard at (I started mine close to when you did – 2010) .
1. THANK YOU for reading and loving it.
2. Yes! The Instagram thing guts me. Each post is now a reflection of what is on your blog and mini blog posts too. It’s no longer: here’s my dog, here’s my sloppy but delicious breakfast, here’s me at the zoo, here’s me finishing a 5k! And companies value your Instagram (and follower numbers) account more than your blog, yet it takes weeks/days/hours to put a blog post out there. It’s really disheartening.
You’re amazing. Love your transparency, your heart for your family first, AND your recipes. So thankful you’re still sharing!
100% thank you so much Brooke! I’ve always appreciated seeing your face and name pop up in my comments and likes over the years! xoxo
I just want you to know I love your blog and thank you for being real!
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Thank you to the moon and back! I appreciate you!
i started my blog in 2010 so i can relate to much of this, though i was never (close) to being a “big blog” and honestly never really tried to become one. some of my early blogging friends did get there…and some are still there, and others aren’t. it is hard when so much changes and so much is driven by numbers and professionalism. i don’t recall how i found your blog (sometime in the last year, i think) but i wanted to say hi and to let you know that i really enjoy it. 🙂
Sarah!!! Thank you for this. I also find it interesting when there are bloggers that start blogging to make money, and they 100% go after it in a business sense. Because that so wasn’t me. I guess it was only through making money off my blog unexpectedly that I later became disappointed that I no longer was… if that makes sense.
Anyways, I appreciate your comment so much. And keep blogging! Clearly you’re fueled by your love for it!
Oh, Melissa. We are at a turning point in blogging, aren’t we? It’s so weird. I, too, feel you when you see people who started around the same time as you (or later!) having so much success. I’ve decided it’s luck, and I’ve also decided that while their blogging career might be going well, it might be the only thing that’s going well for them, you know?
Reading that post in the FB group made me realize some of the big people I admired were struggling, too.
I don’t know what else to say, lady. I’m glad we met through this blog thing! I’m glad you’re going to keep blogging! If it makes you happy, keep doing it. Good things will come 🙂 Love ya, girl!
I will say, the best thing that came from blogging for me is all of the true friends I’ve made. Making friends as an adult is nearly impossible, add in a job where you’re secluded all day…it’s shocking but wonderful that I’ve made such close friends from it. ie I’m so glad to have you in my life.
That post on FB was really hard to read through; very eye-opening. We all need a bit of help…
I totally feel ya girl!!! I had to give up on blogging, and that was a tough pill to swallow. Like so many other businesses these days, when others catch onto it, the competition becomes so crazy! I was taking away the love I had for being in the kitchen, and at the end of the day I had to realize that it was no longer right for me to keep trying to compete.
Hey lady. I know I’m late to the party here, but I was scrolling through some of your posts and saw this one and knew I had to read! I’m right there with you only I gave up about a year ago..maybe more. It was heartbreaking. I cried a lot, too. I thought I was going up in the blogging world only to come crashing down with crickets each time I posted. It sucked big time when Glam (?) went under. I also started other blogs because you know “niche” blogs are more popular and heaven forbid I write about more than one thing on one blog so that didn’t help splitting my time up. I started blogging at the same time as Lee from Fit Foodie Finds so every time I saw her success I got secretly discouraged.
This blogging thing is tough. I keep thinking about going back and starting it up again, but there was a lot of heartache involved. :/ Virtual hugs.
That is SO hard; to see other bloggers who start at the same time as you, in your same niche, get the traction and you just don’t. And also, like you mentioned, if you try to write about something else you’re passionate about but isn’t in your blog’s niche, readers run like your blog has the plague. I’m sorry you’ve struggled, but you also have so many other good BIG things in your life (hello house hunting), so don’t look back! 🙂
Girl, you are NOT alone in this. Seriously. Not even close to alone. I always wondered what I did wrong. I get so aggravated hearing people talk about starting a blog to make extra money or people who started 1-2 years ago who are earning such high figures and I too have busted my butt for 8 and the traction is minimal. I’m at the point of looking at all the domains I own from ideas that never came to be or are now just sitting around but costing me more money and one by one letting them go. I’m trying to decide the future of each site and the future that I want to pursue. I truly enjoy blogging but I’m over making myself post all the time when it often feels like it’s only going out to crickets. It’s hard to say what the future holds but I totally get the pain…
Right?! I hate seeing comments in those behind the scenes FB groups from people who have posted one blog post and they’re wondering when it’ll become viral. I know you worked so hard for YEARS and we both know it’s not easy and there is no answer. Also, posting all the time just isn’t working anymore. I can’t. You can’t! It doesn’t fit into my life to be posting 3, 4, 5 times a week (my kids would starve), so it’s hard to see other bloggers who have a lot of family and childcare (and assistants) around them so it looks like they never stopped working…anyways. You get it. Thanks for reading!
Very interesting post. I remember first hearing about blogs, and I couldn’t figure out what they were. You must have been one of the first. fascinating. and making so much money, it must have been emotionally staggering for all of that to have stopped. I can’t even imagine. I’ve been blogging for 5 years, but I’m retired, my kids are out of the house (they’re in their 30’s) and I retired from catering, and it was just a way to still make food I enjoy, and not limited to what my husband wants for daily meals. But it is like a job. I can see being young and excited/motivated, and having people throw money at you was exciting. I want none of that, and fortunately don’t need money, and don’t want a cookbook. But never thought about your experience. And who can “compete” with bloggers who have lighted studios, and rooms of props, and cameras hanging from their ceilings. Personally I don’t follow those blogs. When ads are popping up so often I can barely read the text, that blog gets unfollowed. This is just me. I’m happy for all of the successful bloggers, but do they lose their passion? Because even what I do with my blog it feels like a job. Right now I’ve been on the computer over 2 hours catching up with blog posts. I love it, but it is time-consuming. and when bloggers also don’t replay to comments? I unfollow. There has to be a balance. Oh, and honestly, if I see that “this post is brought to you by”….. and it has nothing to do with food, unfollow. it’s obviously just about making money. I only have 2,000 plus followers from around the world, and I’ve met many of them! My favorite people are those who also love learning about food (because none of us knows it all) and sharing what they know, and sharing what they discover during their travels. I also don’t think that at 22 you should call yourself a chef and a professional anything, just because you have a pot and a recipe. Everyone seems to think they’re a food stylist. But like I mentioned, I don’t just want to see photos that look like they belong in magazines, either. anyway, i’m rambling. Having children is way more important than any job you have. A hobby is workable, and an actual blog is something you can share with your children when they’re older. Keep cooking, and keep sharing. Your responsibility now is being the best mom. I hope your husband understands this instead of you supplying family income.
I love your perspective on this! Thank you for your thoughtful comment. My husband has long moved past thinking my blog will be an income for our family, since it stopped being that a few years ago. That certainly has taken some mental pressure off of it. But yes, to have companies paying for my work and then switch to not paying me (but I’m STILL working) was very hard. I don’t think there’s any other industry where that happens.