Show Your Work!
Austin Kleon
Show Your Work! is Austin Kleon's short guide to getting discovered without self-promotion. Its argument is that you do not need to be a genius or wait for a finished product: share your process as you go, a little every day, teach what you know, and treat the people who find you as peers. The book is organised as ten short chapters, each a principle you can practise this week.
Most people who do good work keep it hidden until it is finished, polished and impressive, and then wonder why nobody is waiting when they finally announce it. Kleon's answer is that by the time the work is done, its most interesting part, how it was made, has already been thrown away. The people who get discovered are usually the ones who let others watch them learn.
The book in essence
Kleon wrote Show Your Work! as a companion to his earlier Steal Like an Artist, which was about taking influence in; this book is about letting your own work out. Its central move is to replace self-promotion with self-documentation. Instead of broadcasting achievements, you share the raw material of the work: what you are reading, what you tried, what failed, what you noticed. That material is easier to share, more honest, and more interesting to the people who will become your peers.
The ten principles move from mindset to practice to endurance. You do not have to be a genius: join a scenius, the ecology of people who make things together (a word Kleon borrows from the musician Brian Eno). Think process, not product. Share something small every day. Open up your cabinet of curiosities, the things that influence you. Tell good stories about your work. Teach what you know. Do not turn into human spam. Learn to take a punch. Do not be ashamed of earning a living from your work. And stick around, because the people who keep going are the ones who end up known.
Who it's for
- Designers, writers, developers and other makers who do good work and dislike the idea of self-promotion
- Professionals who want to share what they are learning but think they need to be experts first
- Anyone with a half-finished project who keeps waiting for the right moment to show it
Who it's not for
- — Readers who want a detailed platform strategy or analytics; the book is short and built on principles by design
Key lessons
01
Think process, not product
Finished work hides its most interesting part: the choices, the dead ends, the materials, the reasons. Kleon suggests keeping a running record of the work as it happens (notes, photos, sketches, drafts) and sharing pieces of it. Documenting is easier than performing, because you are not claiming to be an authority; you are showing someone in the middle of learning. And people who watch the process feel connected to the result before it exists.
Deniz, a furniture maker in Kadıköy, used to post only finished tables. She began sharing the middle: the board she rejected and why, the joint that split, the oil she tested on an offcut. Followers started asking about her methods, and two of them ordered pieces before they were finished.
02
Share something small every day
Kleon's daily dispatch is a small unit of sharing: once a day, after the work is done, post one thing from it, such as a sketch, a sentence, a lesson or a link with a line about why it mattered. Small is the point. A daily habit is sustainable where a big launch is not, and over months the small pieces add up to a body of work. He also advises keeping a site of your own as the permanent home for it, so what you make is not scattered across feeds you do not control.
Mert, a junior data analyst in Antalya, committed to one post every workday: a chart he had made, with one sentence on what it showed. Many posts got no reaction at all. Eight months later a recruiter messaged him to say she had followed his charts for weeks and already knew how he thought.
03
Teach what you know
Many people fear that sharing their methods will make them replaceable. Kleon argues the opposite: teaching what you know earns trust and attention, and the people who learn from you often become the ones who hire, recommend or buy from you. The moment you learn something, you can turn around and show others. Alongside it, open your cabinet of curiosities: share the books, people and ideas that shape your work, and always credit them.
Oğuz, a pastry chef with a small shop in Gaziantep, posted every step of his baklava dough, including the mistake that had made it tough for years. Competitors did not take his customers. Instead, cooking schools invited him to run workshops, and visitors to the city came into the shop asking for the master from the videos.
04
Be an open node, not human spam
Human spam is the person who only shows up to promote: posting announcements, asking for attention, never reading or replying. Kleon's alternative is to be an open node: someone who gives more than they ask, answers questions, shares other people's work and treats followers as peers rather than a market. His rule of thumb is to be a fan of other people's work before expecting fans of your own. A network built this way is made of real relationships, and that is what makes it useful.
Zeynep, a freelance illustrator in Trabzon, spent ten minutes each morning writing thoughtful comments on other illustrators' work and sharing one piece she admired. Her own posts were no better than before, but people now knew her name. When a publisher asked an artist she had praised to recommend someone, that artist named her.
Try this today
Pick one thing you worked on today, take a photo of it or write two sentences about how you did it, and share it with a short note on what you learned.
Quick check
What does Kleon mean by 'think process, not product'?
According to Kleon, what usually happens when you teach what you know?
Selected quotes
“Think process, not product.”
“Share something small every day.”
“Teach what you know.”