Meet Alison Marras
This nutritional therapy practitioner and passionate home chef believes healing your body with real food can be a stress-free, flavor-filled journey
When did you start publishing your site?
I started publishing Food by Mars in September 2014.
What do you love most about being an independent publisher?
I love the freedom to create and evolve on my own terms while creating a life with more flexibility.
Do you have a team?
I have two virtual assistants who support me and 2–3 vendors who help with SEO, Pinterest, and things of that nature. Otherwise, it‘s mainly me (and my husband who helps clean the kitchen up after I go in and mess it up).
What can you tell us about interacting with your audience?
I love seeing the recipe re-creations people post on social media! The photos of the food in their home, with their family, and seeing how happy they are to enjoy food that‘s good for them (that they‘ve maybe been missing out on because of food sensitivities) is really fulfilling. Sometimes the biggest surprise still is that someone is making a recipe I put out there in the world! It still gets me every time. I also love interacting in my newsletter when my audience replies to share their thoughts, which helps fuel more content creation.
How does advertising impact your business?
Advertising keeps the lights on and then some — basically, it‘s what keeps my blog going! It helps provide the sustainability in monthly revenue I need to build upon my business.
What else should we know about your site?
I created Food by Mars as both a creative outlet and as an exploration of cooking healthy food because my health was on the decline. FBM has been ingrained in my healing journey as a way to save my own health and a way for me to help others with the same cooking challenges I had along the road of using food as medicine, discovering food sensitivities, and overcoming chronic symptoms. It‘s been pivotal in both my personal and professional lives.
