Lessons Learned from a Year of Blogging

Well, it’s been one year since I posted my first blog! I thought it would be fun to share some of my thoughts on blogging and what I’ve learned over the past year as a novice blogger with absolutely zero experience writing about food, wine, and spirits!

I never thought I would ever be a blogger – I never had the time, and even if I did, I didn’t think anyone would be interested in what I had to say anyway! But the closer I got to retirement the more excited I got about the idea of starting my own food, wine, and spirits blog. First, I have always enjoyed writing about wine. I started keeping a wine journal in 2000 and have continued doing so for the past 22 years. My journal entries include reviews of the wines Laurie and I have enjoyed over the years, along with reflections on where we were and what we were doing when we were drinking the wines. Doing so has helped me keep a mental filing cabinet of my favorite wines and our favorite wine experiences.

Also, I knew I needed a hobby in retirement that would keep me engaged and busy in an activity that would involve continuous education and learning. But it also needed to be enjoyable and be something that I was passionate about as well – blogging about food, wine, and spirits definitely fit that bill!

And finally, Laurie and I have talked about writing a cookbook for years now but have never really made any progress on it. The best we had were scrapes of yellow post-it notes with my hand-scribbled (and mostly indecipherable!) notes with ideas for recipes and cocktails that came to mind over the years. Blogging about food and actually writing down the recipes that we have created, and then testing those recipes in the kitchen got us started down the road of creating our own cookbook for friends and family. We are now well on our way to making that happen in a couple of years!

I’ll admit that I approached the idea of blogging with a fair amount of trepidation, especially after talking to my niece Stephanie about the process and what it would take to create a successful blog (she had created a wonderful blog years ago about the experiences of being a new parent). After she “chopped” a few of my initial blog posts, it was clear that I had A LOT to learn about how to write stuff that people would actually be interested in reading. In the nicest way possible, she told me that my writing style was more suitable for a math textbook than a blog (my words, not hers!), and I would have to make my posts more engaging and personal for anyone to care about reading them. Yikes – those of you who know me know I’m a pretty private person and sharing my feelings and personal anecdotes with a group of people (even ones I know pretty well) doesn’t really come naturally to me. But it was great advice and I’m grateful she pushed me in that direction.

So, what have I learned after a year of blogging? Here’s my list:

• I am so grateful that so many friends and family have embraced my new venture and encouraged me with wonderful feedback and kind words over the past year. It really matters that people actually read and seem to enjoy the blog, so thanks to all of you who have done so over the past year! I now have 40 active subscribers, which is about 35 more than I ever thought I was going to have! That might not sound like a lot, and it really isn’t, but I never wanted nor anticipated a large audience for my blog. Instead, I simply wanted to engage with a small group of friends and family about my love for food, wine, and spirits and hopefully learn from each other. Also, some of you have asked whether it’s OK if you let your friends and family know about the blog – my answer is, of course! If you think someone would be interested, I’d love to have them join me on this journey and would welcome them as part of my extended blog family!

• Based on an analysis of my blog statistics over the past year, you all have clear preferences for which posts you like the most, and which you are less interested in! It turns out that my cocktail recipe posts get the most views, followed by my “personal” posts where I write about my own experiences and what’s happening in Laurie’s and my life (posts like celebrating by 60th birthday, or my tribute to my mom when she passed away recently). Posts that focus on food recipes come in a close third. The posts that get the fewest views include my “educational” posts about food, wine, and spirits (like wine reviews, favorite cookbooks, spirits tastings, etc.).

• You are very loyal blog readers! The average number of views for each of my blog posts is 32. With 40 active subscribers, that means on average, 80 percent of you read my blog post on any given week (although readership seems to fall off in the summer months when everyone is busy with vacations and other stuff)! Again, thank you!!!!

• My most popular post so far was “Cheers to the Best Mom Ever” with 64 views, which I wrote the week after my mom passed away. My least poplar post (which I have to confess surprised me a bit!) was “Kitchen Confidential”, my “tell all” post about my experiences working in a restaurant. I thought that one would have been more popular, and it was one of my favorites (and one of the most fun to write)! Go back and look it up if you haven’t read it yet!

• Enough about blog statistics already! Another thing I have learned over the past year of blogging is that I don’t think I will ever run out of ideas for blog posts! I keep a running list of potential topics to blog about, and I usually have about a year’s worth of potential blog ideas at any time on the list. That said, I am very interested in what YOU would like me to write about, so please let me know if you have ideas for potential blog posts that would interest you – I’ll definitely add them to my list!

• Each blog post usually takes me about 8 hours to write on average. That includes sketching out the ideas for the post on paper, researching any graphics I want to include or taking pictures, drafting and editing (and re-editing, and re-re-editing, …!) the post, uploading, reviewing, and scheduling the post on-line, creating the weekly e-mail, and then updating the web page to reflect next week’s blog and any other changes I need to make. If I have a lot of research to do or I have a recipe to test, it can take longer.

• Finally, I always enjoy the two months I take off from posting blogs (June and December), but I also always look forward to getting back to blogging after those 4-week breaks, which is simply another way of saying that I really enjoy being a blogger!

I’m very excited about the next year and plan to expand the topics I blog about. That includes restaurant reviews, a new series focused on the best things I’ve ever eaten at restaurants across the country, travel-related posts focused on what to do, where to eat and where to stay in various cities for a perfect three-day weekend, and even a guest blog or two written by friends and family to share their perspectives on food, wine, and spirits! And don’t forget to let me know what potential blog topics you would like for me to write about!