“For artists, the great problem to solve is how to get oneself notice.”

source

1. You don’t have to be a genius

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Be an amateur

1. The best way to flourish is to retain an amateur’s spirit and embrace uncertainty and the unknown
2. The best way to get started on the path to sharing your work is to think about what you want to learn and make a commitment to learning it in front of others.
3. Find a scenius, pay attention to what others are sharing, and then start taking note of what they’re not sharing.
   

   1. Be on the lookouts for voids that you can fill with your own efforts, no matter how bad they are at first

   2. Forget about being an expert or professional, and wear your amateurism (your heart, your love) on your sleeve

Find your voice

1. The only way to find your voice is to use it. Talk about the things you love, your voice will follow
2. Write as if it is matter of life and death, it was a matter of being heard or not being heard – a matter of existing or not existing.
3. If you want people to know what you do and the thing you care about, you have to share.

Read Obituaries

1. “every day now is an extra day”
2. Thinking about death every morning makes me want to live.

2. Think Process, Not Product

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1. Take people behind the scene
2. Become a documentarian of what you do
   1. start a work journal
   2. keep a scrapbook
   3. shoot video of your working
   4. take photographs

3. Share something small every day

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Send out a daily dispatch

1. The day is the only unit of time that I can really get my head around. Seasons change, weeks are completely human-made, but the day has a rhythm. The sun goes up; the sun goes down. Focus on days.
2. Once a day, after you’ve done your day’s work – go back to your documentation and find one little piece of work process that you can share.
3. Don’t worry about everything you post being perfect.
4. “How do you find the time for all this?” – I look for it.

The “so what” test

1. Be open, share imperfect and unfinished work that you want feedback on, but don’t share absolutely everything. Don’t overshare.

2. Turn your flow into stock

   “if you work on something a little bit every day, you end up with something that is massive.”

   Small things, over time, can get big.

   1. You’ll find pattern in your flow. When you detect these patterns, you can start gathering these bits and pieces and turn them into something bigger and more substantial. You can turn your flow into stock.

Build a good (domain) name

1. Don’t think of your website as a self-promotion machine, think of it as a self-invention machine. Online, you can become the person you really want to be. Fill your website with your work and your ideas and the stuff you care about.
2. Stick with it, maintain it, and let it change with you overtime.
3. “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.

4.Open up your cabinet for curiosities

Don’t be a hoarder

“all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste.”

1. Before we’re ready to take a leap of sharing our own work with the world, we can share our tastes in the work of others.
   - Where do you get your inspirations?
   - What sorts of things do you fill your head with?
   - What do you read?
   - Do you subscribe to anything?
   - What sites do you visit on the internet?

2. Your influences are all worth sharing because they clue people into who you are and what you do – sometimes even more than your own work.

No guilty Pleasures.

“ all it takes to uncover hidden gem is a clear eye, an open mind, and a willingness to search for inspiration in places other people aren’t willing or able to go.

1. ‘dumpster diving’ - finding treasure in other people’s trash, sifting through the debris of our culture, paying attention to the stuff that everyone else is ignoring and taking inspirations from stuff that people have tossed aside for whatever reasons.

2. Credits is always due

   1. You should always share the work of others as if it were your own, treating it with respect and care.
   2. Don’t share things you can’t properly credit. Find the right credit, or don’t share.

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^{Disclaimer: this is a summary of the first 4 chapters in how to build an audience from the book Show Your Work by Austin Kleon.}