How a Food Blogger Made $150,000 Last Year

This food blogger made $150,000 last year — and in a recent interview, she shared how she did it.

Mallory, who spoke with Yahoo Food anonymously, has what any foodie would consider a dream job: She’s paid to blog, Tweet, Instagram and Pin about her favorite recipes. She told Yahoo Food she made $150,000from her blog in 2014, and she expects to earn more than $250,000 this year.

How a Food Blogger Earns $150,000 a Year

Mallory earns some money from ads, but most of her income comes from being paid to write about a recipe using a brand’s product. In the old days, a brand might pay $50 to a blogger. Mallory says her average is 100 times that: $5,000. “I won’t do a post for less than $3,500 now,” she told Yahoo Food.

And when you compare Mallory’s rates with the cost of buying an ad on TV or in a newspaper, you start to understand why Mallory and other food bloggers are so popular. A national, 30-second ad in 2011 cost almost $110,000 — and a brand can’t even measure the ad’s full value.

On the other hand, Mallory has 300,000 followers combined across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest, and she can tell a brand exactly how many impressions their sponsored post received. That makes $5,000 per post seem like a real bargain.

So there’s real money to be had here and, it seems, plenty to go around. How do you get your slice of the pie?

How to Make Money as a Food Blogger

Mallory told Yahoo she’s very active on all four social media platforms, posting multiple times every weekday, as well as posting two to three new blog posts per week.

She also works with other food bloggers to promote their posts; in exchange, they’ll promote hers.

Good photos are absolutely crucial. Pinterest-worthy food shots get retweeted and shared by followers, but they also get picked up by aggregators like Buzzfeed. “Being featured on BuzzFeed when you’re new? You get a ton of traffic and followers,” Mallory told Yahoo Food.

Once your blog is pro-level, it’s time to start pulling in the cash. Marketing agencies like Collectively, Tap Influence, Pollinate Media, Weave Made Media and CookIt Media connect brands with bloggers. Ad networks like BlogHer, Martha’s Circle or Google Adsense can help you start bringing in the dough.

Will You Make Money as a Blogger?

It’s important to remember that blogging is work, too. To make this kind of money, you’ll have to be super dedicated and put in the time.

“You’ve got to decide: Is this a personal thing or is this what I want to do to make a living?” Mallory told Yahoo Food.