Austin Kleon is the New York Times bestselling author of a trilogy of illustrated books about creativity in the digital age: Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work!, and Keep Going.

He’s also the author of Newspaper Blackout, a collection of poems made by redacting the newspaper with a permanent marker.

His books have been translated into dozens of languages and have sold over a million copies worldwide. He’s been featured on NPR’s Morning Edition, PBS Newshour, and in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

New York Magazine called his work “brilliant,” The Atlantic called him “positively one of the most interesting people on the Internet,” and The New Yorker said his poems “resurrect the newspaper when everybody else is declaring it dead.”

He speaks for organizations such as Pixar, Google, SXSW, TEDx, and The Economist. In previous lives, he worked as a librarian, a web designer, and an advertising copywriter.

In this episode, we talk about how Newspaper Blackout led to Steal Like An Artist, when he knows it’s time to write another book, the pros and cons of self-publishing, why Austin doesn’t believe he’s business savvy, and the role of Luck in Austin’s ability to make a living as a full-time writer.