How Food Writer Builds Upon Not Eating Out Blog Success

"Erik: How did your experience creating a successful first blog inform your approach to creating your second? Cathy: Yeah, my second blog, it’s like who needs a second. First off, that was the big question. So I tried to figure out, you know, how I was gonna navigate that, first start this and then move on to the other blog and then I thought this could be a complementary sister blog. You know, one focuses on gardening and also the workingman’s lunch recipes. Recipes that are good that feed a good crowd, a big crowd but not your expected big, you know, carb lasagna. It’s healthier, a little lighter, and definitely using whatever you have in your hand, budget friendly too. So anyway, um, I’ve basically just kept on doing both blogs and seeing where that goes. And I think the lunch at Sixpoint blog will be more seasonal cause it deals with the garden and I want to share about the next season too and building these new innovations in the rooftop garden itself. And I read peoples blogs about urban gardening and its all a matter of sharing ideas. We get ideas from other people see if we can apply it or just try something a little bit different that’s inspired by another idea that we see. I think it’s really important to share these techniques because there is a lot of information going on with urban gardening. Erik: Are you keeping the writing process the same? Cathy: So, in my first book I really wanted to engage readers by throwing a lot of contest kind of blog round ups. Where I ask other bloggers to make X dish and we all pow wow on a blog post. I did that a lot because I think it’s important to get connected with your community. And now that Not Eating Out - it has it’s own tradition so, it has a monthly reason for not eating out post. I write about cook offs a lot on it and it kind of has it’s own signatures that just kind of just happen organically. With Lunch at Sixpoint it kind of did a lot of the same thing but the first contest that I put on it was name that plant where I show photo of a plant and you have to guess what it is. So it could be radish leaves on top and you have to guess what’s underneath or so forth. Or and herb that you’re like… what the? And that’s been really fun and people respond really well to it and it’s become a weekly part of the blog. And it’s a good way to actually get in touch with my readers to because I give away a prize and it’s always something different. Sometimes it’s a t-shirt form Sixpoint sometimes it’s a jar of jam that I made, sometimes it’s a book that I get blasted about from a PR. One time I did a cookie swap with a reader, the winner. We swapped cookies and I ate her cookies and she ate mine. It was really fun."