Here’s the thing about selling books.
The harder I tried, the worse it got.
So I refuse to use popups, countdown timers, fake scarcity theatre designed to panic people into buying.
Instead, just honest work, offered quietly.
And it works. Better than any hack I ever learnt.
I call it Open Heart Marketing. OHM for short.
Like the sound. Om.
A bit hippy? Maybe. But it fits perfectly.
Because OHM isn’t a strategy you deploy. It’s not some clever trick you pull.
It’s a posture. A way of being.
It’s how you meet people without pressure. How you share work rooted in trust, not control.
Let me tell you where I started.
I learnt marketing the old way. The dark arts way.
Funnels. Tripwires. Emotional triggers designed to make people reach for their wallets.
I spent years swimming in that world. Coached by internet pioneers: John Reese, Jonathan Mizel, Yanik Silver, Frank Kern.
Backroom seminars. Private masterminds. Endless talk about conversion rates and psychological pain points.
And here’s what I saw: how easily the language of care gets weaponised.
How fast “value” becomes a mask for manipulation.
I heard the contempt. The way marketers spoke about their customers behind closed doors.
That was it for me.
I couldn’t do it anymore.
The shift wasn’t immediate.
It took years to unlearn what I’d absorbed. To stop treating people like numbers on a dashboard.
To find a rhythm that actually felt like me.
Now? I approach marketing like an art practice.
I don’t write “content.” God, I hate that word.
I make something I care about and offer it freely.
A story. A reflection. A photo. A fragment of insight. Whatever feels alive in the moment.
Not what I think will perform.
What feels honest.
I want my audience to feel like they’re walking through a gallery, not being herded through a shopping centre.
I want them to be moved. Touched. Not hustled.
You know what I’ve found?
People notice.
They share the work. They write back. They say things like, “This doesn’t feel like marketing.”
They’re right. It isn’t.
In marketing terms, they’d call this positioning.
But I’m not positioning anything.
I’m just showing up, doing what I love, and letting that speak for itself.
My inner life shapes what I share. The work draws people in naturally. Not through urgency or fear, but through resonance.
I’m not desperate for sales. I don’t chase outcomes.
And because of that? I’ve built a sustainable business that still feels human.
Others are doing the same thing.
Seth Godin has written a blog post every single day for over 8,000 days.
Not to sell. To offer.
He still sells millions of books.
Craig Mod walks Japan’s pilgrimage routes. Then writes long, handcrafted essays for his members.
No funnels. No bait. Just care.
Austin Kleon shares what he’s thinking and making each week. His newsletters feel like letters from a friend, not marketing campaigns.
None of them rely on tricks.
None of them push.
They just show up. Over and over again.
That’s the heart of OHM.
Open. Human. Unforced.
Marketing doesn’t have to be extractive. It doesn’t have to be noisy.
You can build a life around the things you love by simply being honest about them and sharing from that place.
Are you feeling into what I’m saying?
People are tired of being sold to. They’re craving something real. Something human.
Give them that, and they’ll stay.
You won’t need a popup to convince them.
So here’s my question for you:
What would your marketing look like if you stopped trying to convince people and started simply showing them who you are?
That’s OHM. That’s the work.
And it might just change everything.