Book comparison
Steal Like an Artist vs Show Your Work!
Read Steal Like an Artist if you are stuck at the beginning, and Show Your Work! if you are already making things and nobody has noticed. Steal is the better book and the one to start with.
Steal Like an Artist
Austin Kleon
2012 · 1h 20m
Steal Like an Artist is Austin Kleon's short, illustrated guide to the creative process, built around the premise that nothing is truly original.
Where they agree
Same author, same form: very short illustrated manifestos built from ten numbered ideas, readable in a sitting, aimed squarely at people who make things and have talked themselves out of it. Both argue that creative work is a practice rather than a gift, and both are deliberately light enough to reread whenever you stall.
Where they differ
Steal Like an Artist is about input. Nothing is original, so collect your influences openly, copy the people you admire, and let the places where your copy fails become the thing that is yours. Show Your Work! assumes all of that is already happening and takes up the part afterwards: sharing the process rather than only finished pieces, posting small things often, teaching what you know, and building an audience without the parts of self-promotion that make most makers wince. One book is about how to start; the other is about how to be found.
Which to read first
Steal Like an Artist. It is the stronger of the two and Show Your Work! was written as a follow-on to it. Invert the order only if your problem is obscurity rather than the blank page — if you already have a body of work sitting unseen, Show Your Work! is the one you need.
Read Steal Like an Artist if
You are stuck at the start and half convinced that nothing you would make is original enough to be worth making.
Read the summary →Read Show Your Work! if
You are already making things, nobody knows, and the idea of promoting yourself makes you want to stop.
Read the summary →Common questions
Should I read Steal Like an Artist or Show Your Work!?
Read Steal Like an Artist if you are stuck at the beginning, and Show Your Work! if you are already making things and nobody has noticed. Steal is the better book and the one to start with.
What is the difference between Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work!?
Steal Like an Artist is about input. Nothing is original, so collect your influences openly, copy the people you admire, and let the places where your copy fails become the thing that is yours. Show Your Work! assumes all of that is already happening and takes up the part afterwards: sharing the process rather than only finished pieces, posting small things often, teaching what you know, and building an audience without the parts of self-promotion that make most makers wince. One book is about how to start; the other is about how to be found.
Which should I read first, Steal Like an Artist or Show Your Work!?
Steal Like an Artist. It is the stronger of the two and Show Your Work! was written as a follow-on to it. Invert the order only if your problem is obscurity rather than the blank page — if you already have a body of work sitting unseen, Show Your Work! is the one you need.
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