Happy Monday everyone! Here’s what’s coming up in Mastermind For Food Writers and The Food Writers Business Lab.
Two weeks at a glance:
Coffee Break Chat with Maggie Joos: Substack LIVE, Tuesday, September 22 at 6:00pm EST
Mastermind Meeting THIS WEEK! Join us on Wednesday, September 23! Free for everyone to attend, but registration is required.
Coffee Break Chat with Melissa Norman: Substack LIVE, Thursday, September 24, at 10am EST
How To Build a Platform That Will Sell Your Book Part 2 with Stephanie Moon: Thursday, September 24, 1:00pm EST
Coffee Break Chat with Kalee Tilli: Substack LIVE, Tuesday September 29, at 11am EST
The Food Readers Book Club! September 30th at 4pm UK time, 8 am Pacific Time and 11 am Eastern Time
This week: Mastermind Meeting, North America and Europe
This month will be an open-forum-style meeting. Bring your questions, challenges, roadblocks, and requests for feedback. This is your chance to take full advantage of all the brain power and expertise in the room!
One of the main things we’ll be talking about in this month’s meeting is Notes. We’ll dig in to how all of us are using them, what’s working and what’s not, how we’re thinking about Notes, what we love and what we hate.
*Meetings are free to join but registration is required.
Wednesday, September 23: 11:00am, New York (Eastern Standard Time)
Meeting hosted by Rebecca Blackwell
Follow this link to register for this meeting:
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/PiSUZeb6RACxAWlFSw5ENw
After you register for the meeting, you will receive an email that will allow you to add the meeting to your calendar in your time zone.
Start reading and mark your calendars for the next Food Readers Book Club meeting!
This month’s book is Apricots on the Nile by Colette Rossant. Cookery writer Colette Rossant’s memoir evokes a magical childhood spent in Cairo and Paris during the forties and captures the mouth-watering flavours of Egypt’s cuisine.
If, like Liza, you’ve lost your copy of the book or can’t get a copy before the meet-up, you may wish to listen to the audio of the abridged version of the book that was recorded for the BBC: https://archive.org/details/colette-rossant-apricots-on-the-nile
Join us for the discussion on September 30th at 4pm UK time, 8 am Pacific Time and 11 am Eastern Time. Meetings are free for anyone to join, but registration is required.
Recording from the September Business Strategy Meeting
Business Strategy Meetings are once a month mastermind meeting for paid members of this community. This month’s meeting sparked a discussion that’s still going on in the paid subscriber chat. If you weren’t able to join us, here’s where you’ll find the recording.
The October Business Strategy Meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, October 21 at 3pm EST.
Recording: How To Build A Platform That Will Sell Your Book
Instructor: Stephanie Moon
Last week Stephanie laid out a strategic plan for authors at any stage who want a more sustainable way to grow an audience and build genuine reader relationships that lead to book sales. She walked us through the many forms visibility can take, what nurture looks like after someone finds you, and how to make a clear, confident ask without feeling salesy. Then, she handed us a workbook so we could get to work filling in the gaps, outlining what we need to build next, and putting the pieces together to build a bigger, more engaged audience.
If you weren’t able to join us, the recording is now available! Part 2 of this workshop is on Thursday, September 24, 1:00pm-2:30pm EDT
Coming up in The Food Writers Business Lab: SEO for Food Writers
Instructor: Rebecca Blackwell
In this hands-on workshop, food writers will learn to think about SEO not as a technical burden, but as a way of building bridges from their work to their readers. Because that’s exactly what good SEO is: paths that meet readers where they are and lead them back to you.
Better still, those bridges keep working over time, helping your recipes and stories reach new readers again and again for months and years to come.
The Food Writers Business Lab is for food writers who want practical, affordable guidance for growing their businesses, expanding their audience, and building sustainable careers.
Here you’ll find classes and workshops taught by experienced food writers who understand the unique challenges and opportunities of this industry. It’s education for food writers taught by food writers.
Find out more about how the Food Writers Business Lab works
View the Class Calendar
Workshops are recorded and added to the Library, available to watch whenever you like
Workshop Topics that are in the queue but not yet scheduled: Organizational strategies and tools for food writers, Cookbook self-publishing, How to create an additional income stream with cooking classes, and How to use video to reach new readers and build engagement)
Remember that the Mastermind for Food Writers chat is a great place to ask questions, get feedback, share ideas, and connect with other food writers on Substack.
Have a wonderful week!
The goal of Mastermind for Food Writers and The Food Writers Business Lab isn’t simply to gather more information. It’s to build a better business alongside people who genuinely want to see each other succeed.
Questions?
Send a direct message to Rebecca Blackwell, or leave a comment on this post.