📒Book Notes : How to show your work

This book allowed me to create a strategy of content on building in public.

Exos

Nov 20, 2022

How to show your work by Austin Kleon provides readers with all the elements to start your projects in public.

Austin Kleon teaches :

How to start publishing content on social network
How to manage your time to be productive
How to overcome the impostor syndrome

Action that I take with this book

This book gave me a broader view of how to build a project in public and what to show. The actions that I put in place for my project exos are :

That’s allowed me to be more comfortable with sharing my thoughts and my work online
The setting up of a newsletter where I share my learnings, difficulties, and progress
Establish a strong process to create content
Publish my sketches on Twitter and Instagram
Learn more about storytelling
📒Book lessons

1) Think process, not product

Take people behind the scenes

Traditionally the artist keeps his creative process as something secret or for himself, not paying attention to what the finished product will be but rather to the experience of the process and how to form a network.

With the Internet, the artist can connect directly with his audience by sharing drafts, diagrams, images from his studio, his blog about his influence, his inspirations, and his tools.

✅Example for an artist :

Show your artwork
Show behind the scene in your studio :
Looking for inspiration
Getting an idea
Applying oil to a canvas

Become a documentarian of what you do.

Most people think they have nothing to show for their work at the end of each day.

✅Actionable advice: Start Work journal

Write your thoughts in a book,
Record the help with your phone's audio
Take pictures or videos of your work at different stages of your process.

By doing this, you will see your progress in your work.

✍️2) Tell good stories

If you want to be more effective when sharing yourself and your work, you need to become a better storyteller.

Always when we start we say“My work speaks for ourselves,” but the truth is, our work doesn’t speak for ourselves.

Human beings want to know where things came from, how they were made, and who made them.

The stories you tell about your work have a huge effect on how people feel and what they understand about your work, and how people feel and what they understand about your work affects how they value it.

You need to know what a good story is and how to tell one.

✅Actionable Advice :

Read this book "Building story brand"

🚀3) Teach to everyone

The first fear is being seen as an amateur and not speaking on the internet.

The amateur must be used as a force to make mistakes, learn and innovate

Make stuff you love and talk about stuff you love and you will attract people who love that kind of stuff.

It's that simple

The best way to teach others is to show pictures, words, and videos. Teach people how to do a task step by step in each process. Make people better at something they want to be better at.

Learn -> teach

Share Something small every day

Don’t worry about everything you post being perfect.

✅Actionable advice :

If you're really just starting out, share some of the influences that inspire you.
If you are in the middle of the execution of your project write about the process and share your work with its progress.
If you already have an established project show your final product is written in relation to what you have learned.
If you have several projects around the world you can tell their stories about how people were attracted to your products and the path you took to get there.

Reinvest your content

My newsletter has been my sketchbook, my studio, my gallery, my storefront, and my salon. Absolutely everything good that has happened in my career can be traced back to my blog.

My books, my art shows, my speaking gigs, and some of my best friendships—they all exist because I have my own little piece of turf on the Internet.

You need to create your own place to share content.

For example create a website, a substack, cardd to share your process.

You need to think long-term and content on the web is a powerful tool for the future.