The key ideas

Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

Austin Kleon, 2014

Flea-market objects were resold for dozens of times their original price without anything about them being changed. Austin Kleon explains what can help creative people become visible without pushy advertising: showing their process, sharing discoveries, teaching, and sticking around. Ten rules from a practitioner, with an honest discussion of where they work and where they reflect only his experience.

Who it is for

For anyone who creates things, whether writing, drawings, code, or handmade objects, and wants people to see them but dislikes self-promotion.

Do what you love, talk about what you love, and people who love the same things will be drawn to you.

What the book is about

Two researchers bought a pile of trinkets at flea markets for an average of roughly a dollar and a quarter each. Then they sold them on eBay for dozens of times that amount. The objects themselves had not changed. You will discover exactly what was added to them in the fifth idea.

Austin Kleon is an American writer and artist, and the author of Steal Like an Artist. Show Your Work! is its follow-up, for people who make things but dislike self-promotion. Kleon’s point is that doing good work alone may not be enough for people to find you. You need to be findable.

One thing matters from the outset: this is not research, but the author’s advice, drawn from his experience and other people’s examples. These are ten rules from a practitioner, not laws.

Idea 1. You do not have to be a genius

We are used to the myth of the solitary genius who one day presents the world with a masterpiece. Kleon borrows a different word from musician Brian Eno: Scenius. It means the “genius of a scene”: good ideas often arise among people who share discoveries, debate, and build on one another’s contributions.

In this environment, the most talented person is not the only one who matters. Anyone who contributes something matters: a question, a link, or a conversation.

This leads to the author’s advice: do not wait until you become an expert. An Amateur, in Kleon’s view, can afford to experiment and make mistakes in public, and can more easily explain a difficulty they have only just overcome themselves.

Someone spends a month learning to bake bread and posts each failed loaf with a short note about what went wrong. Beginners sometimes find these notes more useful than an experienced baker’s advice.

You may have something worth saying before you achieve mastery. An honest account of “I am learning, and here is what I have understood” can be valuable precisely because its author still remembers how hard it was.

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About the author

Austin Kleon is an American writer and artist from Texas, and the author of Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work! He is known for his newspaper blackout poetry.

All books by this author: Austin Kleon

Terms from the book

  • Flow
  • Stock
  • Scenius: A word coined by Brian Eno and used by Kleon for a creative environment where ideas arise among people rather than in a solitary genius. A metaphor, not a scientific term.
  • Amateur: For Kleon, someone who does something out of love for it, is not afraid to make mistakes in public, and learns where everyone can see.
  • Cabinet of curiosities: A collection of unusual objects in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe. Kleon uses it as a metaphor for sharing your discoveries and sources of inspiration.
  • Vampire Test: Advice from the author, not a psychological test: if spending time with someone or doing an activity leaves you drained, consider whether you need it.

All terms

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