PDF Summary:Show Your Work, by Austin Kleon

Austin Kleon has risen to fame with his trilogy of books about creativity in our digital culture: Steal Like an Artist, Show Your Work!, and Keep Going, which address how you can succeed at your creative endeavors and how you can promote yourself effectively.

In Show Your Work!, Kleon argues that the best way to promote what you do is to publicly share it throughout your whole process, from the earliest phases to the finished product. This allows you to focus on honing your skills while making yourself available to be discovered.

In this guide, we’ve organized Kleon’s ideas into five themes:

1. Why you should share your work all the way through your process
2. How to share your creative process
3. How to deal with online attention
4. How to make money off your creative work
5. How to persevere

Along the way we’ll consider other views of these topics, including perspectives on how you can overcome perfectionism and how you can handle criticism.

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(Shortform note: Social media marketing experts find that asking questions is one of the best ways to get people to engage with your posts. Consider how you can ask relevant questions at any phase of your creative process to boost your audience engagement.)

If you’ve just finished a piece—show it, insists Kleon. Then show the outtakes and edits. This kind of transparency makes you more accessible to people and helps them get to know you.

Kleon writes that if you have many finished works, tell people about opportunities you may have coming up: a gallery showing or a book reading, for instance. Share your memories of how a certain work came to be, or ask for constructive feedback. Kleon claims there’s always a way to help people engage with your work at any phase.

(Shortform note: While it’s important to show your finished piece or pieces, it’s also important to steer clear of bragging about opportunities or successes you’ve had. Studies show that bragging—whether explicitly or implicitly (the “humble-brag”)—makes you less likable. A better approach is to stay humble. Share your gratitude, share the facts, share when you’re asked, or hire someone to promote you, so you don’t have to talk about yourself.)

Make Sharing a Habit

Kleon advises you to make sharing a habit, preferably a daily one. A practical way to do this is to post on a social media platform such as Instagram, Tumblr, or Youtube every day. He encourages you to try out new platforms as they emerge—if you find something that works for you, stick with it. Whatever platform you use, make time to do it daily. Regular posts generate a steady stream of content for people to see, which creates more opportunities for people to connect with you.

According to Kleon, posting to your blog or sending an email to your subscribers are also effective ways to share on a regular basis, and they give you even more control over the content. For instance, certain social media platforms limit the number of characters you can use in a post. By contrast, in a blog post, you can write as much as you want. Consider adding blogging and emailing to your routine.

(Shortform note: Digital marketing experts don’t agree about how often you should post; however, in general they advise focusing on the quality of your posts over the quantity. With this focus, daily posts may not be ideal. The main reason for this is that creating interesting, useful posts every day can be hard to sustain. Since it’s more important to make posts that are relevant and add value for your followers, simply do that at whatever pace you can sustain even if it’s less than daily.)

Give the Context Behind Your Work

Posting your work daily is good, but if you post without providing any explanation—no context or backstory, for instance—you’ll be missing out on the opportunity to engage people even more, claims Kleon. He suggests that this is because people tend to value things based on their understanding of the context of those things. For example, if you bought a marble bust from a thrift store and later found out it was an ancient Roman artifact, your opinion of its value would probably change.

How Pleasure Works

Kleon refers to the work of psychologist Paul Bloom on this point. In his book How Pleasure Works: The New Science of Why We Like What We Like, Bloom argues that we enjoy things more if we believe them to be authentic or unique.

Based on his research, Bloom believes that humans can’t help but prefer things that they understand to have some special origin. This is why it’s important to explain the special origin of your work to people—if people believe a piece is special, they derive more pleasure from experiencing it. Therefore, one way to get people to enjoy your work more is to simply tell them why they should.

Contextualizing your work is a matter of crafting a story, according to Kleon. This isn’t a skill that comes naturally to everyone, so he suggests you follow good examples: fairy tales and myths, for instance. Such stories have a problem, work done to solve that problem, and a solution. More basically, they have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

For example, tell people about the sunrise you saw on the way to your office or the hours of research invested before finally discovering the one resource you’ve been hunting down for days. When you finally publish your book, followers may be more inclined to get a copy since they know how much labor went into it.

(Shortform note: Communication experts offer several tips for telling a good story. One particularly useful idea is to start with the message. That is, figure out exactly what point you want to make before you start crafting your narrative. For instance, if you hope to convince people to listen to your new song, you might consider telling them about the quirky instrument you found during the recording session that ended up making it into the release. Once you have that point nailed down, it becomes easier to put together the story that will help you make that point.)

Have Your Own Website

As important as it is to post and contextualize your work on social media, having your own website gives you more control and an even better way to build an online presence. Kleon is adamant that you should have one. If you don’t already have one, buy a domain name and build a website (or have it built). Fill that site with your story—your interests, thoughts, products, and so on. Even if people don’t visit your site now, if you keep up with it, you’ll be ready for people to find it when the time comes.

Kleon attributes most of his success to his blog on his website. For years he posted pictures of his illustrations, poems, thoughts, and ideas there. These were the bits of content that got him found. For him, a website allows people to learn about you regardless of social media trends, which are always changing.

(Shortform note: Other experts agree with Kleon on the importance of having a personal website, especially if you’re looking to advance your career or generate more opportunities for yourself. However you build your website—whether you do it yourself or have someone else build it—you must have a few main elements on the site: “About” pages are a good way for people to get a high-level understanding of who you are. “Contact” pages are essential for giving people a way to get in touch with you. Blog or portfolio pages are useful for showcasing your work and thought process. Be sure to include these elements on your personal website.)

How to Deal With Online Attention

Sharing your work online brings all kinds of attention, some of which may distract you, discourage you, or even completely derail your progress, writes Kleon. He has some specific advice about avoiding the wrong kinds of connections and handling criticism, so you can focus on what matters and continue doing the work you want to do. We’ll explore this advice here.

Avoid the Wrong Kinds of Connections

Making meaningful connections is what sharing your work is about, so it’s important that you cultivate constructive interactions, contends Kleon. A prime way to do this is to simply focus on the things you love—the work, the ideas, the artists, and so on. You’ll attract real people who love these same things and you’ll create fewer opportunities for negative attention to come your way.

(Shortform note: Happiness experts note that doing things you enjoy brings more pleasure than talking about things you enjoy. So, as you share your work with others online, focus on the act of creating—making the thing you like to make, or practicing the skill you hope to learn. If you instead get caught up in merely talking about what you’d like to do, you’re likely to feel unhappier than if you actually did it.)

Worthwhile connections are mutually encouraging—focus on these, and ignore the others, says Kleon. Don’t concentrate on the number of followers you have, and instead concentrate on the quality of those connections. If they’re distracting, hurtful, or otherwise drain your energy, don’t give them any time. Online trolls exemplify this kind of attention—Kleon suggests you block them.

Dealing With Online Trolls

Online harassment and trolling have grown only more common in the time since Show Your Work! was published. A recent survey found that the percentage of Americans who experienced severe online harassment (including physical threats, stalking, and the like) rose from 15% in 2014 to 25% in 2021. In fact, over two-fifths of US adults have been harassed online.

In addition to Kleon’s advice to block online trolls from your social media accounts, experts have suggested three other techniques to deal with this kind of negative attention:

• Ignore negative, taunting comments.

• Don’t respond to people who behave this way.

• Make sure your social media followers aren’t anonymous.

Regarding this last point, a way to ensure your followers aren’t anonymous is to periodically check on the accounts of all your followers and block anyone who doesn’t use their real name. This may require some sleuthing, but the effort can help keep your online interactions constructive.

Prepare for Criticism

When you share your work, you open yourself up to criticism, claims Kleon. He suggests five ways to prepare for this:

1. Keep calm: It’s easy to magnify fears about what people might think. Instead, practice calming your mind and body.
2. Invite criticism: By courting criticism, you’ll inoculate yourself to it and will learn how to take it better.
3. Don’t share anything too sensitive: If you don’t feel comfortable opening up certain parts of yourself, don’t. Wait until you feel ready.
4. Keep moving forward: Criticism will come; don’t let it stop you. Just keep doing your work—not everyone will be a fan.
5. Remember, you’re more than what you do: Maintain distance between your work and your identity. Be a friend, parent, and companion, not just a creator.

Carnegie’s Advice on Dealing With Criticism

In his book How To Stop Worrying and Start Living, Dale Carnegie offers a few other tips for dealing with criticism. Two, in particular, stand out in comparison to Kleon’s suggestions:

• Absorb well-intentioned criticism. This kind of criticism can be beneficial. Often, other people see things in us and our work that we can’t. Take the opportunity to improve if the criticism is justified.

• Frame unfair criticism as praise. Often, this kind of criticism is motivated by jealousy or some other weakness in your critic. This should be a sign to you that you’ve accomplished something worthy of envy.

Making Money From Your Work

As you create things, you’ll invariably reach a point where you consider making money from your work. Many creatives balk at the idea, believing it might corrupt the process. Kleon wants you to get over this inhibition. Everyone needs money to survive, and there’s nothing wrong with making money off your work—it doesn’t inherently corrupt creativity. Kleon has ideas to earn an income as a creative person.

(Shortform note: Kleon isn’t suggesting that you shouldn’t have another income besides your creative work. In his previous book, Steal Like an Artist, he encourages keeping a day job to foster your creativity. The reason for this is that having a reliable income will alleviate money worries. Also, the routine of a day job will help build a rhythm to your schedule that frees you up to focus on your creative interests when you’re off the clock.)

Donations

A common way to make money off your work is to simply ask for a donation. For instance, it’s generally expected that a performer will have a jar out to take tips when they perform in public. Kleon suggests that you include a virtual tip jar or donation button on your website. As he sees it, such simple tools let you share a bit of your story and invite people to voluntarily support your work.

(Shortform note: Research shows that people donate more when they feel an emotional connection to the person or organization they’re donating to. This supports Kleon’s idea of sharing a bit of your story when you invite people to donate. If you put a donate button on your website, include a small paragraph near it about who you are and how a donation can help you. If you can explain how it will directly impact your life, you’ll likely elicit a better response.)

Crowdfunding

According to Kleon, crowdfunding is a popular way to fund projects such as publishing a book, recording an album, or constructing a studio. It usually involves offering tiers of support that correspond to different benefits you give supporters. There are many platforms that can make crowdfunding smooth and efficient, and it can be a relatively easy way to collect money. Kleon warns, though, that people who contribute to crowdfunding campaigns may end up wanting a greater say in how their money is put to use. This isn’t necessarily bad, but for him, it limits what you can do with your work.

(Shortform note: Other artists have a different view of crowdfunding than Kleon. For instance, musician Amanda Palmer believes that it’s the ideal way to fund artists. She argues that people like to support artists they respect. If they’re willing to give you support, it’s because they already see value in your work. Just be transparent, and do what you do. For Palmer, it’s not a matter of relinquishing control, as it seems to be for Kleon, because she sees her art as a form of dialogue: The ideas she expresses in her work are part of a conversation she’s having with her fans. When fans give her money via crowdfunding, it’s like they’re saying, “Keep it up.”)

Traditional Transactions

If you’d rather retain control, Kleon advises you to consider a more traditional transaction: Make something, put a price on it, and let people buy it.

(Shortform note: It can be difficult to figure out how to price your work. Experts suggest, however, that you don’t let your emotional attachment to your work affect the price. Instead, base the price on something objective about the product, such as its physical attributes (for example, the materials it's made of) or the time it took you to make it.)

Turn Daily Posts Into Durable Works

If you’re having trouble creating enough stuff to sell, Kleon suggests that you collect your daily shares into larger, more durable works that become part of your corpus. In his case, much of Share Your Work started out as tweets. Over time he fleshed them out into blog posts and eventually into chapters of a published book.

Whatever your creative work is, consider mining your daily posts for ideas to flesh out in this way, advises Kleon. If you examine them, you may find posts that have common themes that you can build into larger, more permanent works.

(Shortform note: Some musicians have found success by using social media to compose a larger work. Recently, the musical duo Barlow & Bear won a Grammy for a musical they wrote live on Tik-Tok. One benefit they found of writing the musical this way is that their social media followers could give real-time feedback as they composed the songs. This helped them gauge the audience’s reception and also encouraged the audience to invest more in the work.)

Use Email to Sell Things

Email is a powerful tool for connecting with people, writes Kleon. Collecting email addresses enables you to keep people in the loop and sell things when you have something to sell. Just remember—never put an email on your list if the owner hasn’t given you permission. And if someone has given you their email address, don’t take advantage of it by spamming them.

(Shortform note: Marketing experts encourage businesses to use email marketing because it has been shown to have the highest return on investment compared to other forms of marketing. If you’re interested in selling your work, then, consider how you can incorporate email into your online strategy.)

Don’t Stagnate

As Kleon sees it, creativity comes from progress, so to stay creative, you must keep moving forward. This will expand your abilities and give you new ideas for things to make and sell. Keep trying things you want to try. Don’t stagnate by passing up new opportunities or avoiding change—otherwise, your work will become stale.

(Shortform note: A recent study shows that trying new things is an important part of finding creative success. Researchers have found that some of the most successful creative people only made a breakthrough after exploring many different styles, techniques, and ideas, and then focusing on whatever piqued their interest. When they focused on one thing, they developed a “hot streak” where they honed that style or idea to make the most of it. One example of a hot streak is Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, which he developed only after trying many different genres of films. So, try something new—you may find your best idea.)

Promote Others

As you make progress and begin to experience success, use it to help others, advises Kleon. Promote them, encourage them, and share your insights. This kind of promotion usually becomes mutual. As you support other people, they support you—this has a way of bringing more work your way in the future.

However, don’t let this process keep you from doing your creative work now, warns Kleon. If you get inundated with questions and emails, consider ways to make engaging more manageable. For example, Kleon holds office hours during which he answers questions from the public. This practice ensures that he reserves a finite amount of time to communicate with people. Otherwise he might easily spend all his energy answering emails.

(Shortform note: Kleon doesn’t mention one particularly effective way to take questions and talk with supporters: live streaming. This involves sharing a live video feed with people online; typically, viewers can comment and converse with you during the video. During the Covid-19 lockdown period, live streaming became a key way for artists, writers, and musicians to connect with their audiences. The benefit of live streaming is that it enables you to interact directly with people and communicate without significant delays or other barriers to conversation. Popular live streaming platforms include Twitch, Facebook, and YouTube.)

How to Persevere

Kleon warns that there will be both good times and hard times as an artist. Sometimes the only thing that separates the successful from the unsuccessful is sticking to it. If you quit prematurely, you’ve already failed. Just keep at it and leave the door open to success whenever it may come. He offers three strategies that can help you persevere.

(Shortform note: According to some experts, perseverance is a critical part of success—it’s less about innate talent than it is about sticking with it and working hard. In her bestselling book, Grit, psychologist Angela Duckworth argues that your level of achievement is determined by how much skill you have and how much effort you put forth. As you increase your skill, your effort, or both, you increase your chances of success, no matter what your creative interest.)

Maintain Momentum

Kleon observes that many artists make it a habit to never stop at the end of a project. Instead, they always springboard into another project. Doing this ensures that they keep up momentum.

(Shortform note: In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert offers several suggestions for maintaining your creative momentum. One particularly relevant practice is to be disciplined. Always try hard, she says, but maintain the joy of the creative process, too.)

Refresh and Recharge

As important as it is to keep up your momentum, sometimes you need to take a short break to refresh and renew your creative energy, contends Kleon. This will vary depending on your personality, but consider taking a short vacation, enjoying a cup of tea, or riding a bike. These and other similar activities can calm your mind and help spark creative ideas.

(Shortform note: Experts have found that a critical phase of the creative process is allowing yourself to recharge by entering an “absorb'' state of mind. In this state, you uncritically take in environmental stimuli—the sound of the birds, the patterns on the wall, and so on. Your creative mind can store up these stimuli to then transform them into something new at another time.)

Reframe Your Past Work

As you share your work, you may find yourself becoming embarrassed of the work you’ve done in the past, warns Kleon. This can feel discouraging and make you consider quitting altogether. He suggests you reframe these feelings. Rather than taking them as a sign of your mediocrity, take them as a sign that you’re learning and growing. This should be encouraging because, as he sees it, you’re never starting from scratch: You’re always building on what came before.

(Shortform note: Creativity experts note that cultivating a growth mindset is crucial for progressing as a creative individual. You have to view failures and mistakes as an opportunity to learn and improve. Be willing to fail, be willing to embarrass yourself—this willingness will help you stick it out for the long haul.)