Sonya - Four awesome female bloggers

Full-time blogging is a funny thing, not that I've ever done it, but I've often read blogs that start off casually and over the years become sustainable paid gigs. My pet peeve is when bloggers start referring to their posts as content. It somehow breaks the blogging magic for me, and reminds me a little of work. My second pet peeve is when full time bloggers hint at upcoming exciting and big projects for ages, without telling you what they are. The latter is becoming pretty common, especially as successful bloggers get more and more sponsorship from companies and are invited to collaborate with them.

Here is a short list of four bloggers that I think have the knack for publishing online, who seem to be personal, interesting and funny. They may not in your interest area and some are not blogs I visit daily, but when I do check in, I really enjoy what I read and watch.

• A Cup of Jo is a blog that a wide range of my girlfriends read and it's a blog that friends who are interested in blogging often aim to replicate. It's written by Joanna Goddard who lives in New York and used to work at a women's magazine. Her blog titles and teasers are so good, simple but compelling and though she now has 2 kids, this didn't start out as a mummy blog (I hate that term!) Interestingly, it's one of the few blogs where the blogger isn't an ace photographer. She tends to hire people for particular shoots or borrow pics from other places. She publishes regular and varied blog series, Vanessa you might like the Motherhood around the world series. I did and I'm not even a mum! I also really like her quick weekly wrap of interesting links.

• Garance Dore is a photographer and illustrator who has relocated from Paris to New York (her boyfriend is The Sartorialist) and much of her blog is fashion focused but in a strangely relatable way, even though she's often photographing models and magazine editors. In the last few years her blog has featured videos, and I really like the Pardon My French series, here's a recent one called 'Is everyone a photographer?' She has a really cute accent!

• Smitten Kitchen inspired this post. I'm staying at my friend Sophie's place and she has a copy of her cookbook at home and the intro is about blogging and is excellent. This blog has really reliable recipes (online recipes can be risky) but the stories that go with the recipes are great too, so often I'll read the post even if I'm not interested in the recipe at all. Interestingly, the blogger says the comments she received from readers early on really helped her shape her blog by giving her an idea of what people really want - recipes that work and are worth the time you put into them. 

• Joy the Baker is similar to Smitten Kitchen but younger, seemingly more American and with a bit more attitude. I've made one or two things from her recipe/cooking blog but most of the time I read her blog because she's funny and is honest about what goes into a blog. I really enjoyed this post - 10 real talk blogging tips.

And a semi-related: 'The photographer is my boyfriend', what happens when blogging couples break up and one takes all of the photos.