Writing style
Conversational · Direct · Witty
Apple BooksShow Your Work!
Self-help
- Print length
- 224 pagesWorkman Publishing Company, Inc., 2014
Description
Austin Kleon offers ten practical principles for making creative work visible without turning self-promotion into a separate, performative career. He urges artists, writers, and other makers to document their process, share small pieces regularly, teach what they know, credit their influences, and participate generously in communities built around common interests. Short chapters combine drawings, quotations, examples, and direct advice about handling feedback, telling useful stories, and distinguishing genuine contribution from spam. The book shifts attention from cultivating a polished persona to showing the daily labor behind finished work. Its central argument is that sustained, thoughtful sharing can connect creators with an audience while preserving the curiosity and routine that make continued work possible.
Reading profile
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
- Writing
- How much attention the sentences and language require.
- Ideas
- How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
- Structure
- How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
- Background knowledge
- Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
- Emotional intensity
- Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Pace
Brisk
Tone
Earnest · Playful · Uplifting
Structure
Argumentative
Focus
Ideas · Information
Emotional intensity
2 / 5
Reading complexity
1–5 · higher means more demanding- Writing
- 2 / 5
- Ideas
- 2 / 5
- Structure
- 2 / 5
- Background knowledge
- 1 / 5
Themes
More by Austin Kleon
Book details
For the print edition listed above.
- Publisher
- Workman Publishing Company, Inc.
- Language
- English
- ISBN
- 9780761178972
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