We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Katy McAvoy. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Katy below.

Katy, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry?  Any stories or anecdotes that illustrate why this matters?

As a content creator, it is amazing to me how often corporations and organizations ask – or expect – me to work for free. Skills are skills whether someone is a photographer or a plumber or a dentist. The same way I’d never expect someone to fix my kitchen sink for free, Corporate America shouldn’t be expecting creatives to work for free. And yet every content creator I know is regularly approached by big businesses asking for photography, videography, and/or writing services in exchange for free products. But free products aren’t accept payment for someone’s rent or mortgage. Social media and affordable camera technology has opened the door for more creatives to showcase their talents, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be paid cash for their time and skills.

I started studying photography 15+ years ago, and began a blog for my photography in 2012. I started adding recipes to the blog as friends and family would ask for them. I’ve always been someone who cooks without a recipe, so posting what I was cooking was also a great way for me to remember and be able to replicate a dish. Eventually everything I was posting created a messy, unorganized website that no one besides my family was looking at. It became time to either take it seriously or take the whole thing down.

In 2017 I began to learn about the food blogging and content creation industry. I loved the idea of using my skills to create recipes and take delicious photos of those dishes. But had absolutely no idea how to start. I began adding content to my original blog, eventually shifting entirely to recipes.

When I was laid off twice within a year – the second time in 2020 due to the pandemic – I used the time to job search, photograph recipes, and learn more about blogging. It started as a way to keep some of my skills sharp, but when job searching kept leading to dead ends, my husband and I decided it was time for me to change my career path. I went all in on my business in early 2021, spending my time creating, writing, and turning my messy original blog into a real-deal website for food and drink recipes.

My blog is focused on recipes that are easy to make and contain simple ingredients. I want you to be able to make one trip to any grocery store and find the ingredients you need to make one of my recipes. If it’s a cocktail, I want you be able to find what you need in any liquor store. This is not about buying expensive liquors you’re going to use one time. And since everyone deserves a beautiful drink, I also have lots of non-alcoholic mocktail recipes on my site. My goal is to make good food and tasty drinks feel do-able and not intimidating.

I named my business Mitten Girl after my home state of Michigan. (The state’s lower peninsula is shaped like a mitten.) I love using the most local products I can find for any/all of my recipes, so a business named after my state was a nod to my local-first mentality.

In 2021 I wrote, photographed, and published my first cocktail book, Homemade Happy Hour. It’s designed for the beginning mixologist and was inspired by people telling me they love cocktails but don’t make them at home because it’s too much. I wanted to create a series of recipes that were simple, delicious, and contained easy-to-find ingredients.

To keep it local, I ran a Kickstarter campaign to offset the cost of printing the book in West Michigan and had the opportunity to work with an amazing local graphic designer on the book’s layout. The initial printing of Homemade Happy Hour sold out in less than a year which is a big deal when you’re self-publishing. No one else is working to market my book. It’s all me! Thankfully, I’ve had great support from local small businesses. Homemade Happy Hour is currently being sold at 17 retail stores in 5 states (all small businesses!), in addition to being sold online at mittengirl.com/book where I fulfill all orders.

Photography is my biggest creative love. My original content focus when I started sharing my work in 2012 was on nature, especially birds in motion. Capturing movement fascinates me because there’s so much detail that our eye misses. When you freeze movement with a photograph you can discover all of those tiny details.

I’ve spent much of 2022 working on my drink photography, particularly when it comes to movement. Ingredients dropping into a glass, a curl of smoke off a drink, pouring liquid into a shaker – there is such an art to capturing those moments in a way that’s interesting and engaging for the viewer. When I’m photographing a drink recipe, I shoot every piece of the process – including every ingredient pour – to show each step, which allows you to more easily recreate the drink at home.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?  Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

The average person has no idea how many creative people it took to make that Big Mac billboard they saw on the way home, into a reality. More than ever, there are tons of ways for creatives to make money using their incredibly real skills and talents. Just because you’ve never heard of a job, doesn’t make it less real. “That’s not a real job!” or “How can you make money doing that?!” or “What’s your day job?” are not only rude comments, but completely untrue ones. Many creatives make a living in lots of fascinating – and very real – ways.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative entrepreneur is being in charge of my own schedule. It sounds so simple, but it’s a big deal. When I worked jobs at other companies, I would be sitting at a desk at the end of the day – work done – just waiting for the clock to be a certain time in order to leave. I would have long commutes in bad weather because I had to come into the office. I’d be full of guilt if my daughter was sick and I had to stay home with her. All of that stress is gone now. I work from home and don’t commute every day. I schedule client meetings and jobs around my daughter’s school schedule. I go to the gym in the middle of the morning. I work in my home studio on a snowy day. And when I want to be done working for the day – I just stop. I don’t have to count down to the time when I’m permitted to stop. Gaining back time in my days is a benefit and luxury that I don’t take for granted. It’s also allowed to be more creative. I never came up with great ideas when I was sitting in traffic. But I definitely do when I’m walking my dog on a sunny afternoon.

Contact Info:

• Website: mittengirl.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/katymcavoy
• Facebook: facebook.com/mittengirl

Image Credits
All images by Katy McAvoy, Mitten Girl LLC.