Book Review: Austin Kleon's Show your Work! 10 ways to share your creativity and get discovered.

I bought Austin Kleon's 'Show your Work' book in digital format after seeing someone reference it on LinkedIn, and I apologize, I do not remember their name, which goes against some of the advice in this book; give a shout out to those whose shared ideas you embrace… oops!

Anyway, one of the key features that attracted me to it, was that it gives simple suggestions for how you can, and should, share more about yourself and your work. This is not something I do naturally. As an eLearning developer and instructional designer, the work you create is normally for a paying client, not so much to promote yourself, and so I found the act of putting myself out there, in any capacity, quite challenging. If you’ve been connected with me on any social media up until a couple of months ago, you’d know that I very rarely post anything about my life or anything else on there. I’m an avid follower of others, but I got to the stage in my life a few years ago, where I just didn’t see any value in sharing things, and actually preferred the privacy.

However, now I am at the start of my freelance business journey, and I realised that I’m going to have to get over that hump of not being comfortable sharing online, if I want people to discover me, and hopefully want to do business with me.

So does this book help with that? Yes. Kleon gives simple, direct suggestions, with regular references to real examples of these ideas at work. I feel that the content leans more toward artists, and other creative types, however, not so much that it’s impossible to see how the suggestions can be applied to other professions.

If I was to be super critical, I would say that on occasion, one descriptive example leads straight into another, where one was probably enough. Nonetheless, this didn't detract from my overall enjoyment of the book.

Here are the three takeaways I got from it and how I have applied them to my own online presence:

1. "Become a documentarian of what you do". Jot down or record an idea every day that might be useful to share at some point. This is something I did practice beforehand (albeit not everyday) using the notes app on my phone, however it was mainly just ideas for my business, as opposed to ideas for sharing. My preferred method now is to record a voice note using the OneNote app and that dictates it straight to text (some editing is usually required!). Then that note is readily available across all my devices for retrieval later. Do I record something every day? No…. however, I did record my thoughts after each time I read some of this book, and that has helped me remember what they were and informed my writing of this review.

2. "Make stuff you love and talk about stuff you love and you’ll attract people who love that kind of stuff. It’s that simple". Don’t be so precious about gatekeeping your knowledge. Sharing what you know helps others and draws those with similar interests, or with an interest in knowing about what you know, to you. Based on that advice, I started sharing some snippets online (check out my Tracy Talks and PowerPoint demo posts!).

3. "If you want fans, you have to be a fan first" and "Don't turn into human spam!". Connect with others like you, and be a fan of their work, not with the sole intention of driving traffic to your business pages or to increase your number of followers, but to learn, collaborate and contribute. I have joined some online eLearning communities and will read what others are posting about, answer questions if I think I can help, ask questions myself, and thank others when they share something I find useful.

I found it to be an easy, useful read. The sheer fact that I am writing a publicly available post, sharing my thoughts and also posting about this on social media, is all thanks to this book. So if, like me, you struggle with where to start or are looking for new ways to grow your online presence or network, I recommend taking some time to read this.

Buy here: Austin Kleon's Show your work! 10 ways to share your creativity and get discovered