With social media in steep decline, many of us are scrambling to replace one of its biggest perks: discoverability. Finding new readers used to be as simple as posting regularly. Today? Not so much.

A Content Exchange offers a smart, sustainable alternative — and adds genuine value for your existing backers.

The Content Exchange

Sharing another creator’s work with your Patreon or Substack audience isn’t just a good idea — it’s great content.

One thing I’ve seen again and again: the more exclusive content I post, the more pledges and subscribers I get. Scarcity works. And a Content Exchange lets you post something fresh and exclusive without creating it from scratch.

How it Works

Syndicated cartoonist Stephan Pastis joins Brad and Dave to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of his comic strip, “Pearls Before Swine.”

“Pearls Jubilee”

• 25th-anniversary celebration of the beloved feature from bestselling cartoonist Stephan Pastis
• 288 pages, hardcover, 2.75 pounds, gorgeous paper stock, holographic metal foil – the works
• Preorder it at https://publishing.andrewsmcmeel.com/book/pearls-jubilee/
• Read “Pearls” at https://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine

Book Tour

• Nov. 10, 2026, at 6:30 p.m. — Charles M. Schulz Museum, Santa Rosa, CA
• Nov. 11 at 7 p.m. — Third Place Books, Lake Forest Park, WA
• Nov. 12 (time not listed) — Russian River Brewery, 700 Mitchell Lane, Windsor, CA
• Nov. 14 at 3 p.m. — Garland Theater, Spokane, WA
• Nov. 15 at 6 p.m. — Magers & Quinn, Minneapolis, MN
• Nov. 16 at 6:30 p.m. — Olmsted Center, Drake University, Des Moines, IA
• Nov. 17 at 5 p.m. — Paragraphe Books, Montreal, Quebec
• Nov. 18 at 7 p.m. — Politics & Prose at the Wharf, Washington, DC
• Nov. 19 at 6:30 p.m. — Park Road Books, Charlotte, NC
• Nov. 20 at 6 p.m. — Bookstore1, Sarasota, FL
• Nov. 21 at 3 p.m. — Carmichael’s Bookstore, Louisville, KY
• Nov. 22 at 5 p.m. — Half-Price Books, 5803 E NW Highway, Dallas, TX
• Nov. 29 at noon — Barnes & Noble, 6600 Menaul Blvd. NE, Albuquerque, NM
• Nov. 30 at 6:30 p.m. — Boulder Bookstore, Boulder, CO
• Dec. 1 at 7 p.m. — Vroman’s Bookstore, Pasadena, CA
• Dec. 4 at 5 p.m. — Barnes & Noble, 1450 Ala Moana Blvd., Honolulu, HI

This conversation is a candid exploration of creativity: Finding flow, recognizing what makes a joke work, separating writing from editing, and balancing the confidence to publish with the humility to improve. Stephan also shares stories about meeting Charles Schulz and explains what would make his own cartooning career feel truly successful.

On this week’s show:

• Making Pearls Jubilee. Revisiting 25 years of cartoons and organizing them into rankings designed to spark arguments.
• Fan mail and hate mail. Why Stephan opens his anniversary collection with both — and what he’s learned from reader complaints.
• Finding creative flow. How music, movement, and releasing the pressure to produce help Stephan discover ideas.
• Reverse-engineering The Far Side. Studying Gary Larson’s cartoons and identifying incongruity as a powerful foundation for humor.
• Letting time be your editor. Creating enough distance to judge your work without defending the hours you spent making it.
• Writing freely, editing critically. The lesson Stephan took from collaborating on the Timmy Failure film.
• Ego and insecurity. Why confidence can launch a career but also interfere with the work.
• Charles Schulz’s influence. Meeting a childhood hero, receiving an unforgettable critique, and honoring Peanuts Jubilee through his own anniversary book.
• Awards, praise, and artistic success. Navigating repeated Reuben nominations and protecting your voice from the temptation to chase approval.
• Passing it forward. Why inspiring a future cartoonist matters more to Stephan than another trophy.

I was asked recently: “Would it be wrong to draw my comics on A4 paper? I find it hard to fill big spaces.” My answer was, of course, that they should do what they felt comfortable doing. But it made me think that some novice artists might not appreciate a basic drawing rule…

Social media is among an independent artist’s most frustrating elements. We struggle for engagement, wage constant battles with “The Algorithm,” scramble for every last clue to success… and lose. Time and again, we lose. It’s a little overdue to closely examine what’s happening here.

Writing comedy is a challenge that is made even more daunting by the fact that humor itself is completely subjective and impossible to define. Here are some thoughts on developing a clever idea until it’s actually funny.