- Lisa Steele is a blogger and small-business owner who made more than $1 million in revenue in 2022.
- She doesn't do affiliate marketing but makes money through book royalties, brand deals, and products.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lisa Steele, a 57-year-old author and entrepreneur based in Maine. Insider has verified her income with documentation. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I'm a fifth-generation chicken keeper, an author, an entrepreneur, the host of "Welcome to my Farm" on Create TV, and the founder of the backyard-chicken-keeping brand and blog Fresh Eggs Daily. I have nearly one million followers across social-media platforms and email subscribers, and I've sold more than 165,000 copies of my books, which I started publishing in 2013, to date.
After graduating from college, working as an accountant on Wall Street, then owning a bookstore for a few years, I started a Facebook page and the Fresh Eggs Daily blog in 2012 to share photos of my chickens for fun. The biggest thing I learned from my time working on Wall Street was that I wasn't meant to sit in a cubicle and work for someone else. But I also developed a good work ethic and the ability to work under pressure and deadlines, which comes in handy, especially when I'm writing books, freelancing, and providing media quotes.
Now, I'm earning more than $1 million in revenue annually through book royalties, brand deals, and a backyard-poultry product line. My annual profit is around $400,000.
I fell into this very organically
I didn't start my blog expecting to earn a living — I was just providing answers to common questions about raising chickens that I was getting on Facebook. It wasn't until another blogger casually mentioned to me that brands would pay to advertise on my site that a lightbulb went off.
I charged $10 a month for my first ads. I approached chicken-keeping, gardening, and food brands whose products I was already using, and some of them are still working with me more than a decade later. My annual packages now run around $7,000 to $30,000 a year, depending on the size of the ad and what else the contract includes.
My team includes the manufacturer for my Amazon and Chewy poultry-feed supplements, a publicist, an agent, and an accountant, but I single-handedly maintain my Instagram and Facebook and write all my blog posts. I post on Facebook four times a day — mostly scheduled ahead — and at least once a day on Instagram. I write around one blog post per month, and I've written 700 to date. I spend a lot of time optimizing old posts by taking better photos and adding bulleted lists, headers, subheads, and links to products.
There's no normal day for me
I try to work 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. days, but I often sit in the evenings editing photos or answering emails. I can't say that I work full time, though, because on some days I might only "work" for an hour or two, while on others I'm still going well after dinner.
I might have a phone call about products we're launching or about a new brand I'm working with, or I might design product labels or do research for a blog post. When I'm working on a book, and I've written seven in the last decade, I schedule social media as much as I can to give myself larger blocks of time to concentrate on writing. I spend about half an hour a day caring for my chickens. Because I'm now writing cookbooks, I devote a few hours a week to recipe testing and development.
When I'm filming for the TV show, it's usually a ten-hour day with the crew. The show started on the CW in 2015 and was originally called "Fresh Eggs Daily with Lisa Steele." I approached the station manager at the CW here in Maine, and she loved the idea. The show ran on the CW for two years, then moved to NBC for two seasons. Then American Public Television approached me about creating a show for a national audience, and "Welcome to My Farm" started airing in April 2022.
My time is super flexible, so I can live my life and still have a successful brand. If I want, I can take an entire day off and still earn money from my passive income: blog ads, product sales, and book royalties. Passive-income streams are critical. Every penny I earn can't be hands-on — I just don't have time for that. But I love what I do and would work 24/7 if I could.
I streamline as much as I can
At the end of each year, I assess everything I'm doing, and if it doesn't net enough money to make the time spent worth it, or if I don't love doing it, I drop it. For example, I realized that Pinterest wasn't worth investing time in, nor was public speaking or freelance writing. There's not enough revenue available to make the time involved worth it to me. Cutting these out around 2015 allowed me to scale and grow my brand without having to hire employees.
I learned early on that chasing brand deals for social posts wasn't worth the effort involved, either, and I also don't do affiliate programs. They're a great deal for brands, but they're a terrible deal for affiliates. The commissions are low, and you're competing with all the other affiliates and influencers out there. You spend a lot of time and effort promoting brands and products with no guarantee that you'll be the one to get the commission.
Instead, I prefer long-term brand relationships. I've been the "face" of several brands including Meyer Hatchery, Blue Seal Feeds, Manna Pro, Tractor Supply Company, and Spalding Labs — all of which are brands in the poultry-and-homesteading space — on their promotional materials, on their websites, and in print ads.
I think it's really important to not follow the crowd. You have to stand out in your niche, and you can't do that by being a clone. I tend to not follow those in my field on social media and instead follow those who are killing it in their niches. I follow anyone who interests me and who I see succeeding in a big way, whether they're creating chicken content, food content, or something entirely different.
Having a business background has helped me enormously when it comes to profit margins, the cost of goods, and understanding how to create a brand. But I've found that studying others who are successful, regardless of their niche, can spark ideas I can use in my own endeavors.
The more successful you become, the more that attracts haters
There's a hate group on Facebook devoted to tearing me down called "Rotten Eggs Daily." It started right after my first book came out in 2013 — another chicken blogger was apparently jealous of my success and started the group. There are currently a few hundred members, and the main purpose of the group seemed to be discrediting me.
But someone I admire very much told me years ago that successful people are successful because they elicit emotions on both ends of the spectrum. If you have people who love what you're doing, you will also have those who absolutely hate everything you're doing. The kiss of death for anyone, no matter your field, is indifference. So take the good with the bad and realize there are far more of those who love you than those who do not.