When Austin Kleon advises us not to “turn into human spam” he is saying that we need to be productive contributors to the community we are in. We can’t just bombard others with our work and not offer up anything to them. We can’t do the opposite either though. We can’t simply comment on other people’s work without offering our own up. There needs to be a balance of give and take between you and the community you are interacting with. We can’t expect people to help us if we don’t help them.

"When people realize they're being listened to, they tell you things." quote by Richard Ford

Austin Kleon’s Show Your Work book discusses the horror of becoming human spam. As he explains it, being human spam is selling too much of your own work and not taking the time to look at other’s work. This is a very important thing to learn, especially with writing. It is important to look at other works in the same genre and see how they tell a story and taking that and using it in your own unique work. It is also important to share your work with others in order to get feedback and criticism and hopefully learn from that criticism. My favorite example of working with others and not being human spam is C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. I loved reading Narnia as a kid, and I love reading it to my nephews still. I’ve always loved Lord of the Rings and all of Tolkien’s short stories.