Finding Your Voice as a Creator: Insights from Austin Kleon Cross-referential Reflections by Me

“Be so good they can’t ignore you.”

This is the advice we often hear when struggling to get noticed as creators. While mandatory, this must be coupled with relentless self-promotion. Or, as Austin Kleon stresses in Show Your Work, sharing and posting must be baked into your process.

They make you discoverable — not by wasting time ‘networking’ but by leveraging the network — a true alternative to self-promotion for those of us who hate it.

Since that includes me, I’ll share a few ‘cross-referential’ reflections on concepts in Show Your Work I found particularly impactful.

Scenius

Unlike self-promotion, which can feel like pushy marketing, sharing forges meaningful connections. However, doing it effectively requires first shedding an unproductive notion:

‘The lone genius myth.’

Legendary musician Brian Eno emphasizes that creativity is not ‘inherently anti-social.’ We thrive when we find a scenius. That is a culture and demographic forming an ‘ecology of talent.’ And as Kleon explains:

“(…) many of the people who we think of as young geniuses were actually part of a whole scene of people who were…