Not Delia

Is food blogging a business or a hobby for you?

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by

Not Delia
in

These days there are countless food blogs around and my guess is that most bloggers do it for love not money. Many of them have a day job and then they write about food in their spare time as a recreational activity. This is great!

But. Then they see other people making money with their blogs and start wondering about AdSense and the like. They start to wonder if maybe they too could get paid for doing what they enjoy.

The answer is “yes”, you can. But if you’re doing something to make money (whether you love doing it or not) then I would say that you need to approach it in a business-like manner. There’s a lot of tips and tricks involved to priming the flow of cash coming in. There are learning curves to be climbed up. You won’t make any serious money if you’re not serious about making money. I thought it would be interesting to ask the question here.

Please add your thoughts by commenting below. I’d like to write more about the subject of food blogging but I’ll wait to see what, if any, feedback I get first.

Comments

9 responses to “Is food blogging a business or a hobby for you?”

  1. Stu

    I always thought it’s a bit of both.

    If you see it only as a hobby there will be times where you will get bored and if you see it only as business there will be time where you will be discouraged to continue.

    If you mix them both then you can keep going and regard blogging either as a good hobby that earns you money or a nice and enjoyable business scheme!
    It’s the best of both worlds!

  2. Ted

    I imagine theres nothing stopping it from being both a hobby and a moneymaker 🙂

    But I think youre right – You won’t make any serious money if you’re not serious about making money.

  3. Woodie

    What there them just said.

    You can make money out of it if it’s just a happy but it’s never going to make you a fortune but could be a good source of pocket money.

    You have to be in it to win it. And all that 🙂

  4. Not Delia

    Thanks for the comments so far. Keep ’em coming!

    This blog has been a wee bit neglected of late so it’s good to see there are still some readers around. I’m just looking for some ideas for things to post about and trying to find out what might interest people.

  5. Bruce

    I know somebody who’s in it for neither the money nor the hobby.

    He’s UK based and owns a restaurant directory. He bought and holds the site solely for the free invitations he gets to restaurants. Greedy s*d 🙂

  6. Not Delia

    Good point about the freebies, Bruce. Not Delia gets offered quite a few, plus TV appearances! Unfortunately I have to turn down most things as we’re very rarely in the UK and nearly every offer is for the UK.

    But it looks as though there’s a big trip back to the UK on the horizon. Big changes ahead for this blog too!

    I also know someone whose blog attracts a lot of really good freebies. I’m not envious because he passes them my way if they’re in our area.

  7. Goram

    If you get the ads, affiliate links and visitors no reason why you can’t make some money from blogging. But will be hard work.

  8. Pippa

    Making a living out of any kind of blogging is going to be hard, especially these days. Not impossible, but hard – you certainly won’t get super-rich any time soon (if at all).

  9. Not Delia

    I would say that, yes, you can make some money from a food blog but making a living is an entirely different matter. You would need to hit the big time to be able to live off what a food blog can bring in. There are other bonuses – people want you to review their books and sample their products. I find it very rewarding but, whilst I do try to earn a bit of dosh from it, I mostly think of Not Delia as my hobby blog.

    As Goram said, join Google AdSense and affiliate with some merchants. That’s the most likely way of making money with a food blog. It’s a very competitive market, though. Nearly every man and his dog has a food blog these days. If you want to earn money then I’d suggest trying another subject to blog about. Make sure it’s something which you’re interested in otherwise you’ll get bored and give up too easily. I have a blog about genealogy – a subject I have no interest in – I hardly ever update it but it adds a little to the kitty every month.

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