The Internet has changed a lot of the ways we do business. You can pay bills online, buy cars online, meet friends online, and maybe, if you're lucky, live out your dream job online.

Author and artist Austin Kleon believes he owes his career to the web. Across blogs and social media, he's found his calling, a following, a few new jobs, and two book deals.

Kleon will be at Changing Hands Bookstore tonight, Thursday, April 26, signing his most recent release Steal Like an Artist, as well as Newspaper Blackout, his poetry-turned-visual art collection.

We spoke with Kleon midway through his first big book tour, "Steal Across America."

Steal Like an Artist is billed as a manifesto for creativity. Since creativity can be applied broadly to so many different fields -- not just art, but science and math, too -- was the book challenging to write?

To me, the book was less about creativity and more about how to live a life that makes creativity easier.

I believe that all advice is autobiographical. When you give advice, you're just talking to yourself in the past. There's an adage: What's personal is universal, and specificity leads to universal truth. The more you can stick to your own experience, the more people can extrapolate from it.

People have this idea that you can reach down your throat and pull out a creative genius. But the better way to do it is to completely immerse yourself in influences and then put your work out into the world.

How has the Internet shaped your career?