Show Your Work ! By Austin Kleon

Show Your Work is a book I needed to read many years ago. Truth be told in todays world and at the time of me writing this review. Most of you are already doing it anyway. If not only sharing but maybe even oversharing. If like me you have been reading many blog posts, researching various platforms in attempt to master them all and improve your visibility online then not much in this book will be news to you.

However bear in mind Show Your Work was published first in 2014 back when all this was not a hype and many of us haven’t hopped on the online wagon. After reading Steal Like An Artist (which you can read a review about here ) I wanted to read all the other titles in this little series and I am glad I did so.

Let me elaborate. For starters all the knowledge bits and bobs that I have aquired from various sources is nicely gathered in one place adorned with amazing wisdom and brilliant illustrations. My cup of tea! Most importantly it adds to that knowledge, snippets of good advise reminding us not to steer from the big picture. For me that was when he said: Show your work and share it but don’t share pictures of your coffee ! I mean, don’t we all do that? I became so conscious about what I am posting. Sometimes in an attempt to keep things moving on my stories I do end up sharing my coffee for the lack of having anything else. Now I am consciously refraining from doing that and don’t share at all if it is not work related.

I also love the subtle reminder about the importance of doing small bits every day which eventually translates into a huge body of work over time. Having a smart graph of that concept really made that point stick in my mind.