The Business of Food Blogging: Is it Lucrative?
Description
On this week’s episode, we’re joined by Shay Bocks of Feast Design Company. Shay started hustlin’ in 2008 to connect her creative gifts and ravenous curiosity with the ambition of creative entrepreneurs. Nowadays, that dream has manifested into a full-time operation serving other dreamers just like herself.
Within the Genesis community, Shay is best known for her Foodie Pro theme, one that has continually been the #1 selling theme on StudioPress. She followed that up with a theme called Brunch Pro, and just recently released another one called Cook’d Pro.
In this 31-minute episode Brian Gardner, Lauren Mancke, and Shay Bocks discuss:
- How Shay’s first 7 jobs shaped what she does today
- Challenges she faces as a small business owner
- The popularity of the Foodie Pro Theme
- What makes a successful food blogging brand
- A recipe solution: the Cookbook Plugin
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The Show Notes
The Transcript
The Business of Food Blogging: Is it Lucrative?
Jerod Morris: Hey, Jerod Morris here. If you know anything about Rainmaker Digital and Copyblogger, you may know that we produce incredible live events. Well, some would say that we produce incredible live events as an excuse to throw great parties, but that’s another story. We’ve got another one coming up this October in Denver. It’s called Digital Commerce Summit, and it is entirely focused on giving you the smartest ways to create and sell digital products and services. You can find out more at Rainmaker.FM/Summit.
We’ll be talking about Digital Commerce Summit in more detail as it gets closer, but for now, I’d like to let a few attendees from our past events speak for us.
Attendee 1: For me, it’s just hearing from the experts. This is my first industry event, so it’s awesome to learn new stuff and also get confirmation that we’re not doing it completely wrong where I work.
Attendee 2: The best part of the conference for me is being able to mingle with the people and realize that you have connections with everyone here. It feels like LinkedIn Live. I also love the parties after each day being able to talk to the speakers, talk to other people who are here for the first time, people who have been here before.
Attendee 3: I think the best part of the conference for me is understanding how I can service my customers a little more easily. Seeing all the different facets and components of various enterprises then helps me pick the best tools.
Jerod Morris: Hey, we agree — one of the biggest reasons we host the conference a every year is so that we can learn how to service our customers, people like you, more easily. Here are just a few more words from folks who have come to our past live events.
Attendee 4: It’s really fun. I think it’s a great mix of beginner information and advanced information. I’m really learning a lot, and having a lot of fun.
Attendee 5: The conference is great, especially because it’s a single-track conference where you don’t get distracted by, “Which session should I go to?” and, “Am I missing something?”
Attendee 6: The training and everything, the speakers have been awesome, but I think the coolest aspect for me has been connecting with those people who are putting it on and then other attendees.
Jerod Morris: That’s it for now. There’s a lot more to come on Digital Commerce Summit, and I really hope to see you there in October. Again, to get all the details and the very best deal on tickets, head over to Rainmaker.FM/Summit.
Voiceover: StudioPress FM is designed to help creative entrepreneurs build the foundation of a powerful digital business. Tune in weekly as StudioPress founder Brian Gardner and VP of StudioPress Lauren Mancke share their expertise on web design, strategy, and building an online platform.
Lauren Mancke: On this week’s episode, Brian and I will discuss the business of food blogging with Shay Bocks of Feast Design Company.
Brian Gardner: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to StudioPress FM. I am your host, Brian Gardner, and I’m joined, as usual, with the vice president of StudioPress, Lauren Mancke. We’re excited to talk to Shay today because we’re continuing our series here where we’re talking to members and experts, mind you, of the Genesis community. We’re going to just jump right into it.
Today, we’re joined by Shay Bocks of Feast Design Company. Shay started hustling in 2008 to connect her creative gifts and ravenous curiosity with the ambition of creative entrepreneurs. Nowadays, that dream has manifested into a full-time operation of serving other dreamers just like herself.
Now, within the Genesis community, Shay is best known for her Foodie Pro Theme, one that has continually been the number one selling theme on StudioPress. She followed that up with a theme called Brunch Pro and just recently released a new third food-blogging theme called Cook’d Pro. Shay, it’s a huge pleasure for Lauren and I to have you on the show today. Welcome.
Shay Bocks: Thank you. I’m super honored to be here with the likes of you guys. Y’all are my heroes, so this is awesome.
Brian Gardner: Ah, the y’all has already started.
Shay Bocks: Oh yeah, absolutely.
Brian Gardner: I love talking to you because you have such a great accent. It’s awesome. I love it. It makes me smile.
Lauren Mancke: I didn’t even notice. That’s how we talk around here.
Shay Bocks: Exactly. Lauren knows what I mean.
Brian Gardner: So I’m the outsider is what you’re saying?
Shay Bocks: Yeah.
Shay Bocks: Before we start talking to Shay, the Shay of 2016, I thought it would be fun to head back in time a little bit. Last week on Twitter, there was this hashtag going around called the #FirstSevenJobs. Everybody would Tweet the first seven jobs that they had, and then they used the hashtag. Anyone you were following, you can kind of see what they were up to in years past. Some people flipped hamburgers, and other people were DJs and stuff like that.
Let’s talk about when you were younger — you’re still young — but younger than you are now. Before you became this Internet powerhouse, what did you do before this?
How Shay’s First 7 Jobs Shaped What She Does Today
Shay Bocks: I’m super excited you asked this. A lot of times, those hashtags go around, and it’s kind of silly what people do. But when I actually sat down and wrote out my first seven jobs, it was a realization as to how all of those previous, kind of insignificant jobs, that you start out with really informed what I’m doing now. It’s kind of cool to see how that turned out.
The first job I had was actually when I was 15. I became a youth facilitator for a major nonviolence organization. I got to travel around the world with McGruff the Crime Dog, if you remember him. I also got to work with a lot of teens and teach adults how to work with teens, and we lobbied politicians.
The biggest thing that I got out of that was that, when I got this insight into using creative solutions to solve problems because we worked with these teens to create media campaigns and we sat in think tanks with refugees from Uganda and different things like that, that had to be the best job that I could have ever hoped for, especially when I was only 15 years old.
Brian Gardner: Sure.
Shay Bocks: From there, I did something way more boring. I worked as a service coordinator for an HVAC company. I had to switch gears from that and do something a little bit more exciting. I went to New York to live as a live-in nanny. I worked for a single mom, who was really this big-shot corporate creative in New York — really got to see how she leveraged her skills for what she was doing at the time. I’m sure she’s still doing amazing things.
After that job was over with, I came back to Chesapeake, Virginia, and worked as an office manager at a radiator repair shop. It was owned by friends of ours. I would say that one taught me how to work with difficult people and how to get invoices paid, but in a very nice way, to make sure the people w
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