How to Make the World Take Notice of Your Art, Without Selling Out or Giving In

Show Your Work! is such a generous book, and essentially a must-read for artists and creatives of any sort. I’m a huge fan of Austin Kleon, but I never would have heard of him if he hadn’t shared his work with the wider world — with people like me.

I’m his audience, and to reach me, he had to share, create, tell, showcase — basically everything that artists have to do to build a loyal following of people who love what they do.

Kleon reinforces the message of Kevin Kelly’s super-famous essay, 1,000 True Fans, namely that in order to make a living doing creative work, you don’t need to be mega-famous. You just need to find and be a part of a — relatively — small community of people who love what you create and what you offer them.

But the key is that you have to keep showing up; and, in the beginning, that’s not going to look pretty.

You’re not going to have everything figured out, your work’s not going to be polished and shiny, and you’re not going to release a masterpiece on your first try. That, however, is completely normal, and shouldn’t stop you from creating and showing your work during the process.

Build in public, become comfortable performing as an amateur, and stick around long enough to become a…