Art of Sharing: A Summary of Austin Kleon's 'Show Your Work'

"Show your work" by Austin Kleon is an interesting and insightful book on creativity, showing and sharing what you love to people and collaboration. It should be on everyone's Bookshelf and its not just for artists or content creators.

You don't have to be a "Genius"

It seems that most people who don't share and/or afraid to share think that they have not something worthy enough to share to the world. Actually you don't have to be rich, famous, or have fancy resume or even a fancy degree from an expensive school to contribute.

Be like an amateur - Be an amateur when telling your stories because amateurs have little to lose, they take chances and experiment with what they like and in the process of figuring out new things, they make new discoveries.

Share your process and not the final outcome

In this Internet era, people loves to see what is happening behind the scenes when they are creating "stuff" like how a food factory works, how the sausages gets made and so on. This way anyone can form a bond with the person who is sharing.

You can decide on how to much to share and what extent. For example, you can share your sketches, works-in-progress, post pictures of studio or blogs on what interests you most, your inspirations and tools.

“In order for connection to happen, we have to allow happen, we have to allow really seen.” — Brene Brown

Share something small every day

Building a good work takes a lot of time and dedication. You don't have to first gain lot of experience to show your work. Instead, you can share what you learned today because a day is what you can control and plan.

Tips:

• Pick a platform based on what you do. For ex: Filmmakers may use Vimeo or Youtube, Business People may want to use LinkedIn, for Writers there is Twitter and Visual Artists may look at Instagram or Facebook.

• Don't worry about the post being perfect.

• Be cautious on how much you want to share your information. Whenever you’re going to share stuff ask yourself these questions:

  • Is this helpful?

  • Is it entertaining?

  • Is it something I’d be comfortable with my boss or mother seeing?

Share other people's work

Share people's work that interests you or influences you the most. Your influences are all worth sharing because people get a clue who you are and what you do — sometimes even more than your work

Don't let anyone make you feel bad when you finds things you really enjoy. You don't have to feel guilty.

Credit the person if you're sharing the stuff online. It provides a sense of attribution to the author who created it and also shows respect towards him.

Tell good Stories

Good stories really make huge impact on readers. If you just work and work and don't share what you love, you miss lot of things.

‘"The cat sat on a mat’ is not a story. ‘The cat sat on the dog’s mat’ is a story.” — John le Carre

Tips:

• Structure your story well

• If you telling finished or unfinished story, always keep audience in your mind.

• Speak to them directly in plain language.

• Value their time.

• Be brief.

• Learn to speak.

• Learn to write.

• Everybody loves a good story, but good storytelling doesn’t come easy to everybody so you have to develop this skill so study great stories and then go find some of your own.

Teach what you know

"The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes". — Annie Dillard

Teaching is the best skill to understand and learn complex concepts. If you are teaching someone how to do your work, you are actually generating more interest in your work.

Teaching people will make people closer to you and people will be able to connect to you and will eventually reach out with recommendations and their thoughts.

Don’t turn into human spam

Stop worrying about how many people follow you online and start worrying about the quality of people who follow you.

If you want to be interesting, you have to be interested. To make good connections, focus on getting good at what you do.

When you share your work, you’ll into people that share your obsessions, mission as yours and with whom you share a mutual respect. Show them your work before anybody else.

Don't worry about criticism

When you put stuff out there, you’re going to get a bit of criticism(good, bad, ugly).

Don’t take criticism personally. Learn to take it.

Don’t let the fear of haters stop you from putting yourself out there. They’re a tiny minority, and they have no real power over you.

“The trick is not caring what EVERYBODY thinks of you and just caring about what the RIGHT people think of you” — Brian Michael Bendis

Ask for some monetary help in return for your work

There’s nothing wrong or evil about money. Charging money for stuff doesn’t hamper your creativity.

Whether an artist makes money off his work or not, money has to come from somewhere: be it day job, wealthy spouse, trust fund, arts grant or a patron.

Tips:

• Put a “DONATE NOW” button on your website or

• Link such as “LIKE THIS? BUY ME A COFFEE.”

• If you have enough fan base or gathered a group of people who are into what you do then use these platforms: Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

Stick Around

Don’t quit - Keep doing your work, and keep sharing.

“In our business you don’t quit, You’re holding on to the ladder. When they cut off your hands, hold on with your elbow. When they cut off your arms, hold on with your teeth. You don’t quit because you don’t know where the next job is coming from”. — Joan Rivers (Comedian)

Tips:

• Don’t think of it as starting over. Think of it as beginning again. Go back to chapter one literally!—and become an amateur.

• Look for something new to learn, and when you find it, dedicate yourself to learning it out in the open.

• Document your progress and share as you go so that others can learn along with you.

• Show your work, and when the right people show up, pay close attention to them, because they’ll have a lot to show you.

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Feel free to read my other exciting such summaries by going here: Books and Articles series🚀📚📑.