How to Start on a Journey of Being a Paid Food Writer and the Realities of the Job

This piece was written by our Community Ambassador, Food publisher, writer and advocate Riaz Phillips. You can find out more about Riaz here.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many more people are at home and online. This means there are growing avenues to get your writing seen and generate some income. How then should you get started?

Food writing can be a rewarding experience for those with a deep love of food. This is especially true for those who see value in food beyond eating. This may be its historical content, its culture value or its community bonding powers. 

It is hard to earn a sustainable living from being a food writer though, so in this blog we explore my key learnings.

Finding your niche as a food writer

Very few people start off as generalist food writers. Many people start with a niche for which they can get known and recognised for. For me, my family are from the Caribbean and West Africa so that’s what I cared about. 

If you want to write about a certain community or heritage and you are from that same community, you will have an advantage. However, if you love a certain niche but you aren’t from that community that shouldn’t stop you! Just be aware of the sensitivities and issues that affect those communities that you are writing about. Check out the Spark & Co. Community and Content section for more resources that can help. 

Create a portfolio or Blog for your food writing

After this, the best way to get started is to get writing. This means writing for yourself, for free. If you are someone who cares about your particular food community this will be natural. 

Sites like Blogspot and WordPress used to be the go-tos. Now I recommend Medium as a place to start. Here, you don’t have to create or design your blog, though, if you want to get started on WordPress, you can tag your articles and submit them to channels that already have lots of readers. This is great for building up your audience beforehand.

Contacting editors at food writing publications

Before COVID-19, the best way to meet people in food writing was in person events like panels, pop-ups and so on. Now everything has gone online, and the chance that  you might be able to get in touch with someone via email is quite good. 

If a certain publication suits your style, find out who the assistant editor or commissioner is. With Google, this shouldn’t be too hard. If not, find someone else who has written for the publication. Try and contact them asking if they would kindly forward you the details of the editor

Pitching food editors at food writing publications

Here it is best to be brief! Title your email with ‘pitch’ and your idea. You won’t get far only saying that you want to write. Instead pitch an idea for an article or content. Even better, have it partially or completely written already. If you have your portfolio to add to this you will definitely increase your chances of a yes if they like your pitch. 

If you want to read some great examples of content and writing head to Spark & Co.’s blog section. Here you will find an amazing array of writers.

Payment as a food writer

In food writing, my experience is that the rates can be amazing. The harsh reality of food writing however is that the inconsistency of the work makes it very hard to live off. Additionally, when you write and submit an article you still will not get paid for a while. This is even after publication. At times it has taken me 60 days to 3 months to get paid after I’ve written an article. Every publication has its own payment terms and these are industry standard. Again, this makes it very hard to rely on.

This is another reason I advocate for side projects like e-books. As your name grows and people get to know and like you they will seek out more content from you. With something like an e-book it’s a great way to generate some income from new eyes on your work.

For those seeking financial aid, especially given the circumstances COVID-19 has placed people in, Spark & Co.’s resources are a great start. Additionally, for further creative assistance Spark & Co. are currently creating a great learning area. This will be a members only space to share learning videos, workshops and guides.

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