“Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative” is a transformative self-help book by Austin Kleon that provides a unique approach to creativity, originality, and the artistic process. Although not explicitly about content marketing, the principles in the book can be highly applicable to this field, promoting creativity, originality, and innovative thinking in the creation of content.
Detailed Book Summary:
“Steal Like an Artist” is based on the premise that nothing is original, and that all creative work builds on what came before. Kleon argues that every new idea is just a remix or a mash-up of one or two previous ideas. The book is a manifesto for the digital age, where the ability to ‘copy’ and ‘paste’ can combine with our own ideas to create something new.
The book is divided into ten main principles that will help readers discover their artistic side and build a more creative life:
- Steal Like an Artist: This is the guiding principle of the book, which teaches that great artists ‘steal’ ideas in the sense that they learn from the work of others, taking inspiration and building upon it to create their own, original work.
- Don’t Wait Until You Know Who You Are to Get Started: Kleon encourages readers to start creating, even if they are unsure of their own style or vision. The process of creating will help them to discover their own artistic identity.
- Write the Book You Want to Read: This principle speaks to authenticity. Creators should produce work that they themselves would want to consume.
- Use Your Hands: Kleon promotes a ‘hands-on’ approach to work. By physically creating things, we are able to learn and understand in new ways.
- Side Projects and Hobbies are Important: Kleon encourages maintaining hobbies and side projects to spark creativity and inspiration.
- The Secret: Do Good Work and Share It with People: This section talks about the importance of sharing your work with others. It’s not enough to create – others must be allowed to see and interact with your creations.
- Geography is No Longer Our Master: With the rise of the internet, creative work can happen anywhere. This frees creators from the confines of location.
- Be Nice (The World is a Small Town): Kindness and generosity should be at the heart of creative work, as you never know who might help or inspire you along the way.
- Be Boring (It’s the Only Way to Get Work Done): This principle speaks to the discipline required in creative work. Sometimes it’s necessary to live a ‘boring’ life to ensure productivity.
- Creativity is Subtraction: This final principle talks about the importance of constraints in the creative process. By limiting options, we can focus more deeply and produce better work.
Relation to Content Marketing:
“Steal Like an Artist” can be invaluable to content marketers. It encourages them to find inspiration in the work of others and to use that as a starting point for creating original content. It also emphasizes the importance of authenticity, insisting that the most compelling content is that which the marketer themselves would want to consume.
The principle of doing good work and sharing it resonates deeply with content marketing. In the digital age, content needs to be shared and disseminated widely in order to reach audiences.
The idea that “geography is no longer our master” relates to the global reach that content marketing has. Marketers can create and share content that reaches an international audience.
“Be Nice” and “Be Boring” emphasize the need for good work ethics and discipline in creating content, while “Creativity is Subtraction” reminds content marketers of the power of simplicity and clarity, instead of overwhelming the audience with excessive information.
In summary, “Steal Like an Artist” offers many valuable lessons for content marketers, including the importance of learning from others, authenticity, sharing work broadly, the global reach of content, maintaining good work ethics, and the power of simplicity.
