Show Your Work by Austin Kleon - Notes + Quotes (Part 1)

Below are the notes I took while reading Share Your Work by Austin Kleon (+ some quotes).

Notes:

• It’s not enough to be good; you have to be findable. As the author puts it: Imagine if your next boss didn’t have to read your résumé because he already reads your blog.
• You can turn a side project/hobby into your profession/business if you have a following base willing to support your work.
• The only way for your work to be found is if it exists online. As Kleon puts it: “It sounds a little extreme , but in this day and age , if your work isn’t online , it doesn’t exist.”
• No need to worry too much about money — at least in the beginning. Instead, focus on good work. The author provides a great example of Patti Smith. When she was young and starting out, Patti Smith got this advice from William Burroughs : “ Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don’t make compromises. Don’t worry about making a bunch of money or being successful. Be concerned with doing good work . . . and if you can build a good name, eventually that name will be its own currency.”
• You can start from small, consistent content creation and eventually turn that into something bigger. For example, Kleon says that a lot of the ideas in this book started out as tweets, which then became blog posts, which then became book chapters.
• It’ll probably take time before it materializes into something concrete. All great work takes time. On blogging, for example, Kleon reminds us: One little blog post is nothing on its own, but publish a thousand blog posts over a decade , and it turns into your life’s work.
• Consistency remains king: “Share Something Small Everyday.” Austin Kleon
• Don’t stress too much about finding your voice. Talk about the things you love. Your voice will follow.

Quotes:

• Become a documentarian of what you do. Start a work journal: Write your thoughts down in a notebook, or speak them into an audio recorder. Keep a scrapbook. Take a lot of photographs of your work at different stages in your process. Shoot video of you working. …  And when you’re ready to share, you’ll have a surplus of material to choose from.
• “Put yourself, and your work, out there every day, and you’ll start meeting some amazing people.” — Bobby Solomon
• “What are you working on ?” Stick to that question and you’ll be good.
• “If you work on something a little bit every day, you end up with something that is massive.” — Kenneth Goldsmith
• Absolutely everything good that has happened in my career can be traced back to my blog. My books, my art shows, my speaking gigs, some of my best friendships — they all exist because I have my own little piece of turf on the Internet.