066: Tools, Tricks, & Techniques for Making Recipe Videos with Alana and Lindsay from Pinch of Yum

Welcome to episode 66 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork talks with Alana Woolley and Lindsay Ostrom about creating awesome recipe videos for Pinch of Yum.

We’ve all heard it: video is the new thing. If you want to grow an audience quickly, if you want to be extremely helpful to your readers, if you want to take advantage of sopnsored content opportunities galore… get into video.

But.. how?? It can seem so daunting to get started with. There’s all the equipment you (think you) need, the amount of time it takes, the pressure to make perfect videos… So many things!

Fortunately, our guests today have a lot of experience creating recipe videos, and they’re here to make it a bit easier for you. Please welcome: Alana Wooley & Lindsay Ostrom from Pinch of Yum!

Keep Reading

065: Michelle Tam from Nom Nom Paleo on Building a Brand, Launching an App and Publishing a Cookbook

Welcome to episode 65 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork talks with Michelle Tam from Nom Nom Paleo about building a brand across many channels.

If you’ve been blogging for a while, or even a short time, you might have found that it’s really difficult to establish your blog on a variety of different channels and mediums. There’s only so much you can do!

Some bloggers excel at it, though, despite the constraints of work, family, and life. Michelle Tam from Nom Nom Paleo is one such blogger. She’s managed to secure a brand presence not only on all the big social networks, but also in the form of her own iPhone app and her own cookbook. She’s a branding queen, and today she’s here to tell us all about it.

Keep Reading

061: Our Very First Community Podcast: Advice and Insight from the FBP Community

Welcome to episode 61 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! We have a special episode today – our first ever community podcast! In this episode, we hear from members of the Food Blogger Pro community talk about what’s working for them right now.

The only bummer about the FBP Podcast is that we just can’t interview everyone. There are so many bloggers out there who we would love to hear from, though!

So, the idea for a community podcast episode was born. Listeners from all over the globe called in to share their tips, tricks, and techniques that are working for them to grow their blog. Ranging from tips to help manage social media to techniques for staying on top of things, this episode has a little bit of everything. Enjoy!

Keep Reading

059: 9 Ways to Avoid Blogger Burnout with Bjork & Lindsay Ostrom

Welcome to episode 59 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork and Lindsay talk about 9 ways to avoid blogger burnout.

It’s August and summer is in full swing. As happy as that generally makes us, summer can often be a difficult time for bloggers – it even has its own moniker, the summer slump. During the summer slump, traffic goes down, ad income falls, and worst of all, bloggers can get totally burned out.

Bjork and Lindsay are no strangers to burnout. They’ve both experienced it many times with their businesses. However, they’ve also been intentional about learning how to deal with burnout when it happens and what steps they can take in the future to keep it at bay. In this episode, Bjork and Lindsay share 9 tips (plus 1 bonus tip!) that you can use to avoid blogger burnout.

Keep Reading

056: Working in Your Area of Brilliance with Meghan Telpner

Welcome to episode 56 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork talks with Megan Telpner about creating a business, staying small, and finding the work you should be doing.

Last week, Bjork talked with Jason logsdon about self-publishing cookbooks. To go back and listen that episode, click here.

Working in Your Area of Brilliance

Meghan Telpner is the CEO of the Academy of Culinary Nutrition, an online school where students learn to create healthy lives through cooking. The school has certified over 700 people to practice as culinary nutritionists and Meghan is a sought-after speaker about entrepreneurship.

She didn’t start there, though. Meghan’s career online began back in the early 2000s, and she’s fine-tuned (and rough-tuned) her business to grow it into what it is today. Meghan has found that just “doing the work” isn’t good enough, and that to really excel you need to be working in your area of brilliance.

Keep Reading

055: Generating Income through Self-Publishing a Cookbook with Jason Logsdon

Welcome to episode 55 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork talks with Jason Logsdon from Amazing Food Made Easy about self-publishing a cookbook.

For many bloggers, getting a cookbook deal sounds like a dream come true. That’s when they know they’ve “made it.” As it turns out, though, getting a cookbook deal with a major publisher isn’t all puppies and roses. When it comes down to it, publishing a cookbook is more about brand awareness than it is about income, and much of the legwork done for creating and marketing the book is still up to the author.

Jason Logsdon published his first cookbook when his blog was still rather small – and he quickly discovered how self-publishing can actually be a simple, rewarding process that allows you to generate income even with a relatively small audience.

Keep Reading

052: How to Sell 4,000 Cookbooks Before You Even Publish with Megan Gilmore from Detoxinista

Welcome to episode 52 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork talks with Megan Gilmore from Detoxinista.

We all know that writing a cookbook is a LOT of work. From the recipe development to the photography, a cookbook author is a busy bee. One thing you might not know, though, is that the author is also expected to presell copies of their book to their audience before it even publishes. As you might imagine, this can be quite the task!

When Megan Gilmore, the author behind Detoxinista, set out to presell copies of her first cookbook, they expected the average number of sales – somewhere around 500 cookbooks. Instead, she blew everyone at 10 Speed Press out of the water with a whopping 4,000 cookbook presales – the largest presale in the history of 10 Speed Press. Today, she’s here to tell us how she did it.

Keep Reading

048: Finding success on the verge of quitting with Dustin & Lacey Baier from A Sweet Pea Chef

Welcome to episode 48 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork interviews Dustin & Lacey Baier from A Sweet Pea Chef.

A few years ago, A Sweet Pea Chef was floundering. Dustin & Lacey had grown it to the point where it was getting expensive to maintain, but they hadn’t unlocked the secrets to turning it into a successful business. They bounced from great idea to great idea, but just weren’t able to get anything to stick.

Until, one day, an internet passer-by pounced and described how inferior they were to the competition. Little did they know, this angry email would lead them down a path that would help them properly monetize their website and start turning things around.

Since then, Dustin & Lacey learned how to say no to good opportunities to focus on what’s most important, cracked the code for viral vide, and took A Sweet Pea Chef to new heights.

Keep Reading

046: How Kate Kordsmeier Doubled Her Income with Freelancing

Welcome to episode 46 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! In this episode, Bjork talks with Kate Kordsmeier from the blog Root & Revel about her successful freelance writing career.

While many of us dream about the days when we could find enough success with our blogs that we could write for magazines like Cooking Light and Conde Nast Traveler, Kate’s already been-there-done-that. With a little experience in copywriting and a lot of drive, Kate was able to quit her full-time job and double her income with freelance writing – before she ever had a food blog.

In this interview, Kate shares a lot of tips and tricks she’s learned along the way so that you, too, can try your hand at freelance writing.

Keep Reading

043: How Tieghan Gerard used Photography, Recipe Development, and Hustle to Build Half Baked Harvest

Welcome to episode 43 of the Food Blogger Pro podcast! This week, Bjork is bringing on an oft-requested guest, Tieghan Gerard from Half Baked Harvest!

We occasionally ask in the podcast for guest requests – bloggers or other inspiring individuals that our listeners would like to hear from. One person who came up quite a few times was fellow FBP member, Tieghan Gerard.

When I think of bloggers who inspire me for photography, Tieghan is definitely near the top of the list. I’ve often thought about what makes her photography so special, and in this podcast episode I finally learned what it is: mood.

When Tieghan heads into a photo shoot, the first thing she thinks about is the mood that she wants to set in the photo. How will this dish make the viewer feel? And how can I portray that with a photograph? Tieghan talks about her photography process and how she sets a mood as well as a lot of other awesome info in this great podcast episode.

Keep Reading