Resource Page Updates + The Vegan Chocolate Winner!

Lots of stuff is going on over here at Keepin' It Kind HQ.

Before we get started on all the news, we have a giveaway winner! Thank you to all who entered the Vegan Chocolate Giveaway and congratulations to the lucky winner, Omer Elad!

Firstly, we finally added something to the photography section of our Resources page. You can now step into our photo studio and take a peek at the equipment we use (and why it works best for us). We hope to post some more food photography resources soon, such as pages on Food Styling, Prop Styling, Shooting at Night, and Basic Photography Tips. Is there anything else you would like to see from us?

Secondly, I added a couple things to the Food Blogger Resources page. It's not much, but it's under the "Monetization" section. Basically, since I'm hoping to someday earn a viable income from blogging, I've decided to become a little more assertive with the way the blog makes money. I was mostly inspired by Kiersten's e-book, How To Monetize Your Food Blog. On the resources page, I talk about why I like it so much. I've also joined The Blogger Network which is helping me accomplish and track many of the changes that Kiersten discusses in the book (because I don't have the time to do them myself). I'm just trying it out right now but so far, I've seen pretty great results and I haven't had to do more than fill out a few online forms. What I need from you, though, is to let me know if you see any ads that you think are inappropriate for a vegan website or if you think any of the ads are annoying. I try to monitor them but I won't always see the same ads that you do, so any feedback from you would be so greatly appreciated.

We also added a new plug-in to the plug-in section. You'll see that I have the Limit Log-In Attempts plug-in listed, but I no longer use it. I think it's a great plug-in (that's why I have it) but after getting over 2000 notifications in 24 hours, notifying me of various IP addresses trying to hack my account, I had to step-up my security game. I added a new plug-in, the All In One WP Security Plug-In, to the list because it has been a lifesaver. With this plug-in, I was able to change my log-in page URL to something pretty hard to find which decreased my hack attempts from 3000-something to around 3-ish per week and instead of having to log-in to my host's c-panel to block these IP addresses, I can do it right from the plug-in settings page. There are also a ton of other security features I could go into but I now feel like my blog is much safer.

In other news, the universe heard our wishes and sent us a major food photography gig outside of our own blog and book. We're very excited about this opportunity and once some of our pictures have been published, I will let you know the Mega-Huge Vegan Company (that I'm sure you've heard of) that we are working for. Between this new gig, a few reshoots for our book, and continuing to post regularly here at KIK, we are going to be busy, busy, busy! And we couldn't be happier. 🙂

Thank you so much for all of your support and encouragement. We wouldn't be where we are now if it weren't for all of you. Have a great Wednesday!