Reviews

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

hades99's review

informative

2.0

heykstan's review

4.0

I read this book in about 2 hours & I enjoyed it. As someone who has been reading up on self-promotion for a couple years, there wasn't anything revolutionary in here. But it was good reinforcement and it did give me a few new ideas. I'd recommend it.

lululrsti's review

informative fast-paced

4.0

skyarnas's review

funny informative inspiring fast-paced

4.5

vanessa_issa's review against another edition

5.0

Eu adoro a escrita do Austin Kleon. Embora a mensagem do livro possa parecer um pouco óbvia, ele nos motiva a continuar seguindo pelo caminho certo, buscando pessoas que se identificam com os nossos valores e que vão reconhecer a importância do trabalho.

A gente termina de ler com vontade de colocar todas as dicas em prática!

spillminttea's review

2.0

I don't like this book. Maybe, some would love, agree to it. Meh...online parts is just meh. I don't like working in online even we are in "homo deus" stage. All about algorithm. You can steal, you can remove the watermark, or anything worst. The authenticity is already thrown off like a rocket up up in the sky.

princess_diana's review

2.0

3.5/5

rabhya07's review

5.0

After reading this, I don't feel alone as an artist. So raw and true! I loved this book and it has taught me so many things!

ioana_cis's review

5.0

Easy to read and follow. Ten chapters with few learnings each. I loved the examples and the artwork around them. Good references and applicable advice. Recommended.

“Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.”
—John Cleese”
“Steve Martin famously dodges these questions with the advice, “Be so good they can’t ignore you.”
“By generously sharing their ideas and their knowledge, they often gain an audience that they can then leverage when they need it—for fellowship, feedback, or patronage”
“Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow”

“That’s all any of us are: amateurs. We don’t live long enough to be anything else.”
—Charlie Chaplin”

“Amateurs are not afraid to make mistakes or look ridiculous in public. They’re in love, so they don’t hesitate to do work that others think of as silly or just plain stupid. “The stupidest possible creative act is still a creative act,” writes Clay Shirky in his book Cognitive Surplus. “On the spectrum of creative work, the difference between the mediocre and the good is vast. Mediocrity is, however, still on the spectrum; you can move from mediocre to good in increments. The real gap is between doing nothing and doing something.” Amateurs know that contributing something is better than contributing nothing.”

“Amateurs fit the same bill: They’re just regular people who get obsessed by something and spend a ton of time thinking out loud about it.”

“ Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked.”
—Steve Jobs”

“Whether you share it or not, documenting and recording your process as you go along has its own rewards: You’ll start to see the work you’re doing more clearly and feel like you’re making progress. And when you’re ready to share, you’ll have a surplus of material to choose from.”


“When you find things you genuinely enjoy, don’t let anyone else make you feel bad about it. Don’t feel guilty about the pleasure you take in the things you enjoy. Celebrate them. When you share your taste and your influences, have the guts to own all of it. Don’t give in to the pressure to self-edit too much. Don’t be the lame guys at the record store arguing over who’s the more “authentic” punk ”

“rock band. Don’t try to be hip or cool. Being open and honest about what you like is the best way to connect with people who like those things, too.”

“Do what you do best and link to the rest.”
—Jeff Jarvis”

If you share the work of others, it’s your duty to make sure that the creators of that work get proper credit. Crediting work in our copy-and-paste age of reblogs and retweets can seem like a futile effort, but it’s worth it, and it’s the right thing to do. You should always share the work of others as if it were your own, treating it with respect and care.

“It’s always good practice to give a shout-out to the people who’ve helped you stumble onto good work and also leave a bread-crumb trail that people you’re sharing with can follow back to the sources of your inspiration. ”

“ The number one rule of the Internet: People are lazy. If you don’t include a link, no one can click it. Attribution without a link online borders on useless: 99.9 percent of people are not going to bother Googling someone’s name.”

“Don’t share things you can’t properly credit. Find the right credit, or don’t share.”

“Strike all the adjectives from your bio. If you take photos, you’re not an “aspiring” photographer, and you’re not an “amazing” photographer, either. You’re a photographer. Don’t get cute. Don’t brag. Just state the facts.

One more thing: Unless you are actually a ninja, a guru, or a rock star, don’t ever use any of those terms in your bio. Ever.”

“Words matter. Artists love to trot out the tired line, “My work speaks for itself,” but the truth is, our work doesn’t speak for itself. Human beings want to know where things came from, how they were made, and who made them. ”

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

“Author John Gardner said the basic plot of nearly all stories is this: “A character wants something, goes after it despite opposition (perhaps including his own doubts), and so arrives at a win, lose, or draw.” ”


“Use spell-check. You’re never “keeping it real” with your lack of proofreading and punctuation, you’re keeping it unintelligible.”

“The way to get over the awkwardness in these situations is to stop treating them as interrogations, and start treating them as opportunities to connect with somebody by honestly and humbly explaining what it is that you do.”

“The writing community is full of lame-o people who want to be published in journals even though they don’t read the magazines that they want to be published in,” says writer Dan Chaon. “These people deserve the rejections that they will undoubtedly receive, and no one should feel sorry for them when they cry about how they can’t get anyone to accept their stories.”

I call these people human spam. They’re everywhere, and they exist in every profession. They don’t want to pay their dues, they want their piece right here, right now. They don’t want to listen to your ideas; they want to tell you theirs. They don’t want to go to shows, but they thrust flyers at you on the sidewalk and scream at you to come to theirs. You should feel pity for these people and their delusions. At some point, they didn’t get the memo that the world owes none of us anything.”

“Of course, you don’t have to be a nobody to be human spam—I’ve watched plenty of interesting, successful people slowly turn into it. The world becomes all about them and their work. They can’t find the time to be interested in anything other than themselves.”

“Do you have a troll problem? Use the block button on social media sites. Delete nasty comments. My wife is fond of saying, “If someone took a dump in your living room, you wouldn’t let it sit there, would you?” Nasty comments are the same—they should be scooped up and thrown in the trash.”

“Most people put up with this because they got to hang out with Picasso all day, but not Constantin Brancusi, the Romanian-born sculptor. Brancusi hailed from the Carpathian Mountains, and he knew a vampire when he saw one. He was not going to have his energy or the fruits of his energy juiced by Picasso, so he refused to have anything to do with him.
Brancusi practiced what I call The Vampire Test. It’s a simple way to know who you should let in and out of your life. If, after hanging out with someone you feel worn out and depleted, that person is a vampire. If, after hanging out with someone you still feel full of energy, that person is not a vampire. ”

“At some point, you might consider turning off comments completely. Having a form for comments is the same as inviting comments. “There’s never a space under paintings in a gallery where someone writes their opinion,” says cartoonist Natalie Dee. “When you get to the end of a book, you don’t have to see what everyone else thought of it.”

“Yet a life of creativity is all about change—moving forward, taking chances, exploring new frontiers. “The real risk is in not changing,” said saxophonist John Coltrane. “I have to feel that I’m after something. If I make money, fine. But I’d rather be striving. It’s the striving, man, it’s that I want.”

Be ambitious. Keep yourself busy. Think bigger. Expand your audience. Don’t hobble yourself in the name of “keeping it real,” or “not selling out.” Try new things.”

“Sellout . . . I’m not crazy about that word. We’re all entrepreneurs. To me, I don’t care if you own a furniture store or whatever—the best sign you can put up is sold out.”
—Bill Withers”

“The minute you stop wanting something you get it.”
—Andy Warhol”

“Work is never finished, only abandoned.”
—Paul Valéry”

“He would do a poetry reading and afterward some guy would come up to him and say, “Your poem changed my life, man!” And John would say, “Oh, thanks. Want to buy a book? It’s five dollars.” And the guy would take the book, hand it back to John, and say, “Nah, that’s okay.” To which John would respond, “Geez, how much is your life worth?”

gpettey19's review

3.0

I certainly see the value in this book. A pick-me-up nudge that tips your motivation riiight over the edge into action. I also took snapshots of a few passages that felt particularly useful to me.

The issue is that it's too short to get into much at all. But mostly, I don't appreciate when books are packed with quotes--David Brooks tends to do this--because they lack substance and a common thread other than, well, a bunch of quotes about a general topic. I would have liked to learn more about Austin Kleon's personal journey and how he has grappled with his ten pieces of advice during his career.

How can you show your work when you have nothing to show? The first step is to scoop up the scraps and the residue of your process and shape them into some interesting bit of media that you can share. You have to turn the invisible into something other people can see. "You have to make stuff," said journalist David Carr when he was asked if he had any advice for students. "No one is going to give a damn about your resume, they want to see what you have made with you own little fingers."