How a Food Blogger Does Money

Jessica Gavin is the food blogger behind Culinary Science with Jessica Gavin

First things first: Many people aren’t aware that food blogging is an actual job. What is your response when others ask what you do for a living?

I’m not a full-time blogger but sometimes I feel like it. Publishing content online can be a grueling process. Creating a recipe from start to finish can take anywhere from 4 to 6 hours. That includes coming up with the idea, shopping, prepping, cooking, photography, editing photos, writing the commentary and promoting on social media. On average I post three times per week and those hours add up quickly. I have to get creative with my time often working late nights or on weekends.

Are you the sole employee of Culinary Science with Jessica Gavin?

The food blog is a two-person operation. I handle the cooking, photography and writing while my husband Jason works more behind the scenes on the tech and business side of things. Together we easily put in 40 hours a week.

On average, how much are you earning per month?

We launched JessicaGavin.com in July 2012, and at the time it was only making a few pennies per day. Four years later it has reached over $100/day. This past August, our food blog generated over $4,400 in one month. My husband Jason, publishes monthly income reports that have been tracking all revenue and expenses for the last two years. The revenue growth has been slow and steady as the traffic to the site has grown.

What are your largest sources of income from your blog?

Display advertising has been the primary source of income since the blog started. We have accumulated over 300 recipes, and with more eyeballs looking at our content, more money is generated from ads. Once the traffic started picking up we were able to approach brands directly to create sponsored posts.

What is the earning potential for a sponsored post? I know it can be highly variable.

The sponsored posts that I have worked on range in payment from $250-$500. I know if we can continue to grow our blog traffic and social media following there’s potential to earn much more. Video is also something we have been experimenting with, sponsors are willing to pay more for a post if video is created in addition to the article.

What many people don’t know about food blogging is that it’s a very expensive business to run. What are some of your biggest expenses business-wise?

While it is possible to grab your phone and upload pics to social media for practically nothing, it’s not going to cut it if you’re goal is to be a serious blogger. Expensive camera equipment, and smaller items like lighting, table surfaces, hosting costs, and software can add up quickly. Like any business you might attend events or training. This year I attended two photography workshops and one food blog conference all out of state. Our August income report had 16 different expenses listed.

If you’re not working full time on your site, do you intend to pursue a full-time income from blogging? Why/why not?

We started publishing our monthly income reports right around the time our son James was born, which was no coincidence. I remember Jason and I having one of those first parent moments thinking how we were going to afford this child and fearing about the cost of childcare. When James was born we got serious about monetizing the blog, our first goal for the income was to offset the cost of daycare. We just started being able to do that, and our next goal is offset the cost of a new family car. While the thought of becoming a full-time blogger sounds great, we live in California where the cost of living is fairly high. We don’t see us quitting our day jobs anytime soon, but generating supplemental income is a nice bonus.

What do you wish people knew about a career in food blogging?

A career in food blogging is a real profession now, it requires knowledge in media arts, marketing, computer science, and business. You also need to be tech savvy to keep up with the latest trends. As you’ve probably noticed on Facebook, video is taking over. That means in order to stand out online you need to continue to expand your skillset.

If you could give advice to someone who is starting a food blog and wants to eventually earn an income through blogging, what advice would you give?

I want people to know that anyone can start a food blog and make money if they have the work ethic, determination and patience. We started in a time when there wasn’t much public information available on how to get a food blog off the ground. Thankfully nowadays, it’s all about the sharing of information. Jason and I have a passion for helping others so we have pages on our site dedicated to showing people how to start a food blog, as well as other resources we use for our site.

Katy MacKinnon is a freelance writer and feminist advocate. Follow them on Twitter and Instagram @katymackphoto

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