Food blogging

Getting Paid for Recipes, One Year Later

September 6, 2011 by diannejacob 105 Comments

Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen (left), says that absolutely, bloggers should charge for recipes. That's Kate McDermott of Art of the Pie in the middle and me on the right. (Photo by Lora Giorgi, Cake Dutchess)

What a difference a year makes. Last year at The International Food Blogger Conference (IFBC), Amy Sherman of Cooking With Amy got a ton of push-back on our recipe-writing panel when she suggested food bloggers should get paid for recipes.

Even I wrote a conflicted piece on giving recipes away for free, which continues to be one of my most-commented upon posts ever.

This year, at IFBC in New Orleans this past weekend, Deborah Perelman of Smitten Kitchen stated, firmly, that bloggers should not give away recipes for free because companies make money from them. There was silence. Hobby bloggers occupied half the room.

And then a woman in the audience, from Wilton, said her company pays for recipes, and that bloggers should always ask for payment. Shauna James Ahern of Gluten-Free Girl, also in the audience, tweeted: “Love hearing @thesmitten, @katemcdermott, and @diannej encouraging women to advocate for themselves when charging for recipes. #IFBCNOLA.”

That’s an improvement over last year, when people talked about giving away recipes for “goodwill” and “connection.” But complicated questions remain about who is asking for these recipes, what you get from giving them away, and what should you charge or not charge in each case. Let’s look at three examples:

Company or corporations: These firms have budgets to pay for work.The rate is anywhere from $250 to $600 per original recipe, according to recipe developers I spoke to when doing research for the IFBC panel. Groceries for testing are never included in the price, and the company will probably own the recipe. Some companies want to pay you in goods. If so, the goods should be worth more than the fee to make it worthwhile.
Cookbook author. If an author wants to put your recipe in her cookbook, charge him or her a nominal fee, unless it’s for a charity you deem worthwhile. But how much, and what if they say they can’t pay? Decide if it’s worth it. An obscure book with a small publishing company might have few readers. On the other hand, it doesn’t cost you much for a recipe already published on your website to appear in a book. And on the other hand, if you believe inclusion would be prestigious, such as in the Food52 cookbook, then you might find it worthwhile from a credibility standpoint.
Company website. If someone offers to post a recipe from your blog for no pay, should you do it? I’d prefer that the answer is no, but I’ve worked with beginning bloggers who have given away content from blogs because it’s good for their credibility and creates incoming links. I don’t like it, but I understand. I just hope it’s a short-term philosophy that bloggers can use as a stepping stone to paid work.

The best approach, the panelists said, is to ask, “What is your budget?” Sometimes after saying no, companies come back with a budget. This moment can be the turning point for many food bloggers, who thought of themselves as hobbyists, and then find that people are willing to pay for their work. And they should. Just because writing recipes is your passion doesn’t mean you should do so for free, outside of your blog.

What is your experience? Has anything changed from last year? Are companies still asking for recipes for free, or is it more common to offer payment now? Are you at the point now where you won’t give away any content for free?

* * *

For more posts about IFBC New Orleans and recipe writing, see:

Like Throwing Darts in the Dark? That's Freelancing

August 23, 2011 by diannejacob 51 Comments

Freelancer Cheryl Sternman Rule. She's learned how to throw darts that hit the target. (Photo by Paulette Philpot)

When I was a magazine editor, I wondered why freelance writers couldn’t figure out what I wanted. I rejected 95 percent of pitches.

Now that I’m on the other side, I see how difficult it is when you’re an independent writer, on the outside looking in.

At the recent Book Passage conference on Travel, Photography and Food Writing, food writer Cheryl Sternman Rule spoke about why pitching to publications is such an anxiety-producing process. What she said resonated with me, so I asked her to share it:

“As a freelancer since 2004, I’ve spent years both pitching and avoiding pitching,” explains Cheryl. “For me, pitching seems like a dark art. There’s black magic about it that often makes me feel like I’m throwing darts in the dark.

“Editors have editorial calendars, or ideas in their heads for what they’d like to cover. We writers are not often privy to this information. So we shoot story ideas out like darts and hope they’ll hit some mysterious, shrouded target. It’s a tough game to play, psychologically.”

That’s exactly right. You keep throwing until you strike the target, even when you get no feedback. You need a thick skin to be a freelance writer, not to mention an ability to see in the dark.

Meanwhile, Cheryl [Read more…] about Like Throwing Darts in the Dark? That's Freelancing

Food Bloggers Make a Pie for Mikey

August 15, 2011 by diannejacob 34 Comments

A beautiful moment occured Friday in the food blogosphere. For an afternoon, all the anxiety and competition about being part of an online food writing community faded away, and people came together in support of food blogger Jennifer Perillo of In Jennie’s Kitchen, who lost her husband suddenly to a heart attack.

It started in a touching post Perillo wrote about Mikey’s favorite pie. People had written her, asking what they could do to help. She suggested they bake a pie:

“As I spend Friday reflecting on the love and life that was gone in an instant, I’d like to invite all of you to celebrate his life too. Mikey loved peanut butter cream pie. I haven’t made it in a while, and I’ve had it on my to-do list for a while now.

I kept telling myself I would make it for him tomorrow. Time has suddenly stood still, though, and I’m waiting to wake up and learn to live a new kind of normal. For those asking what they can do to help my healing process, make a peanut butter pie this Friday and share it with someone you love. Then hug them like there’s no tomorrow because today is the only guarantee we can count on.”

And bake they did, not just individual food bloggers, friends, and acquaintances, but writers on websites like Food52, Eatocracy and the Food Network. Here’s the Facebook event: Peanut Butter Pie Friday for Mikey and Jennifer Perillo.

When I taught my Saturday class on food blogging, I reminded students that blogging is about being part of an interactive community. I showed them the video White on Rice made about the event, and we all shed a tear together.

I thought about why food obsessed people like us cook. It’s a nonverbal way to express ourselves to the people we love. To say, “I did this for you.” Over the weekend, dozens of people did it for Mikey, someone they probably never met, for that reason and another: To celebrate being alive.

Pile of Food Blogger Cookbooks in the Works

August 9, 2011 by diannejacob 132 Comments

“So many food bloggers have books coming out right now!” declared Amy Sherman of Cooking With Amy. She, Cheryl Sternman-Rule of 5 Second Rule (on the list below), and I were gabbing on the phone, preparing for our food blogging panel at the Book Passage Travel and Food Writing and Photography conference this weekend.

I had not counted how many, so Amy whipped up a list and emailed it to me. I added a few names, including writers I coached on book proposals (so proud!). And she’s right, it’s a pretty impressive list.

I happen to know that the advances on this list range from around $3500 to six figures. (A book advance is the amount the publisher pays you upfront.) Regardless of the advance size, there’s no doubt that cookbook editors think food bloggers are hot enough to follow, befriendand even comment on their blogs.

Food bloggers have tons of advantages as book authors. They come with their own list of potential readers. They’ve not only created a community but often they’re part of a [Read more…] about Pile of Food Blogger Cookbooks in the Works

Smitten Kitchen's Deb Perelman on What She Learned by Writing a Cookbook

August 2, 2011 by diannejacob 66 Comments

Deb Perelman turns in the manuscript for her first cookbook, The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, at the end of this month. I caught up with her to ask her how writing a cookbook has been different than writing her blog.

You can meet Perelman at the International Food Blogger Conference in New Orleans August 26-28. She, Kate McDermott of Art of the Pie, and I will be talking about recipe development.

Q. What percentage of recipes will come from the blog?

A. Very few recipes, maybe 10 to 15 percent. I have to put in the greatest hits or it wouldn’t feel like the Smitten Kitchen cookbook.

Q. Where did you get your inspiration for new dishes?

A. I have no shortage of ideas. I have a long list of recipe ideas I’ve been building on for a decade, and I keep them all in Google Docs. I can reach them from any computer, from the phone and from the grocery store.

Besides cookbooks that I know and love, the web is a great tool to research recipes. I gravitate towards recipe sites that have reviews, like the Food Network, Allrecipes and Epicurious. It’s not that I’m looking for new ideas. It’s more like I have my recipe for pancakes, and I wonder if the salt level is too high or how much milk other recipes use.

I get a lot of ideas from restaurants too, where there’s something about the dish I like, like the combination of ingredients.

Blueberry Yogurt Multigrain Pancakes. (Photo by permission of Deb Perelman.)

Q. How is the cookbook different from the blog?

A. There are things I’ve pulled from the cookbook because they were going to be really complicated [Read more…] about Smitten Kitchen's Deb Perelman on What She Learned by Writing a Cookbook

Watch Out for Ongoing Bitter Taste from Pine Nuts

July 26, 2011 by diannejacob 149 Comments

See those innocent-looking pine nuts? They can poison you! (Photo courtesy of Kent Cameron from A Food Centric Life blog.)

How much do you count on your taste buds, as a food writer? Do you use them every day, as a recipe tester, cook, restaurant reviewer, or just because you love to eat?

Then beware of pine nuts. They can ruin your tastebuds for weeks. Actually, they can poison you.

Last Thursday I ate pine nuts at lunch. The next day, a breakfast of fruit, yogurt and granola tasted especially bitter. Lunch was worse. All three dishes I sampled at a hip new neighborhood place were so bitter I could hardly eat them. While making dinner, I was temped to throw out my salmon chowder because of its metallic taste. It tasted like bad white wine. On a hunch, I asked my husband to sample a spoonful. “Really good,” he pronounced.

That’s when I knew something was wrong. Owen Googled “bitter taste in mouth” and found [Read more…] about Watch Out for Ongoing Bitter Taste from Pine Nuts