The James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan - 2 big plans

Episode Date: August 7, 2022

Watch THRIFT TO A MILLION live now on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK8af0oluWg&ab_channel=JamesDonaldForbesMcCannAre you in Adelaide or Brisbane? Come and see James Performing live near you soon!: http://www.jdfmccann.com/comedyJoin the patreon, get the goodies: www.patreon.com/jdfmccann MARLON BRANDO 9/11 COMING SOON Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan. If you'd like to listen to bonus episodes, go sign up to the Patreon. That's patreon.clom. Clom? Ah, we f***ed it. Anyway, look, you'll find a way. Catamaran Home! This is the James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan. A podcast where James Donald Forbes McCann uses a series of plans and a podcast to try to make enough money to buy a boat.

He sold a napkin. There was an art auction. There were the mugs. Although I note that there haven't been all that many plans recently. What a year it's been on the James Donald Forbes McCann catamaran plan. Not even a full year. About six months, seven months, eight months, seven months. And so many plans undertaken.

Of course, starting the program. That was a plan. That's the biggest plan of all, is the Catamaran Plan podcast. A podcast to make enough money to buy a boat. Then I got that napkin. And we auctioned off that napkin and we made in profit about $100 for the Catamaran Plan. Then we had that art auction. A big, big art auction. a big, big art auction,

a big, big success, many people coming along. Hello. I know some people still listen to this day. I think it was in February. We've had guests on the show. I've been out and done other people's shows. We've been growing the podcast in that capacity. I had a special merchandise drive for people who joined the Patreon.

We've got that up to 32, 33 people. Wonderful stuff. Please join the Patreon. Big, exciting things happening for people who join the Patreon, announcing very soon on this very podcast. But some of these post-art auctions have been sort of insular, week-by-week things. Like having an interview with someone is not so much a plan as an event.

What about a big plan? Well, I've got two big plans that we're announcing today. One coming up soon, and one has already begun. Secretly. Working. I'm like a duck. I look all calm on top, but I'm paddling, paddling, paddling underneath the water, furiously trying to get ahead. But let me tell you very briefly about one of the plans that has been indefinitely postponed for the time being. And that plan is a book of essays that I've

been writing for the last almost two years. Year and a half? One year? Six months? Four hours. For some time, I've been writing essays. And I would just, when the mood took me, I would sit down, I would write an essay of maybe 800 words that wasn't really suitable for publication anywhere. And I've been compiling them and culling them.

And I've gotten that up to about, well, it was 40,000 words. Then I cut it back to 20,000 words. Then it was up to 50,000 words, then it was right back down to 10,000 words. You know, this is the sort of way you write it. But at the moment, I'm happy with about 40,000 words and I think it'll get up to 50 by the end. So I've taken that book, Subterranean Ear Luxury,

and I thought, this book of essays, what if I released that with the catamaran plan, and I use some of the money from the plan to publicise the book. Subterranean Ear Luxury. Then in the book, I publicised the catamaran plan, and then suddenly there's more people listening here, there's more people reading the book, money's coming in, excellence is growing, wonderful stuff. And I started taking the steps to self-publish the book.

But everybody I spoke to about it said, James, shouldn't you at least try to see if a major publisher, indeed even a minor publisher, wants to pay you lots of money for your book? And I said, excuse me? And they said, sometimes if people really believe in a book, they will pay you an advance and you could just have a lump sum of upwards of $10,000. Sometimes these book advances, let me tell you, a million dollars.

Not very likely for me personally, but that's how enthusiastic these companies can get for a book. Shouldn't you at least send it to them and see if they'll give you a big lump of money? Because no one knows who you are. You're very obscure. And this is the sort of shooting yourself in the foot type self-sabotage maneuver that has really prevented you from making bold strides into show business previously. And I thought, man, that's unbelievable that five or 10, 30, 20, many, many people have been saying the exact same thing to me. When I show them my book, they go, hey, this is pretty good.

And I go, I'm going to self-publish it. And they go, why? Are you going to send it to someone first? And I go, no. And they go, James! That's the sort of chat I was having. So I thought, all right, stuff it. Let's send that book out to some publishers. And the book is with the publishers now. And I've got more people to send that book to and more publishers

to hear back from. And a negotiation must be entered into if I am to have someone else publish that book. And you know, the sad thing is that takes ever so much time. There's etiquette. People have to read it. People, I assume, research you and try and find out if you're the type of person they want having a book. In this PC age, that sort of briefing, I believe, goes on. And so I say, okay, let that go on.

But, oh, I just kept waking up every day and thinking, is today the day I can finally announce this book, the next plan? And I never could because it hasn't come yet. And it might not come for some time. Boy, that's been frustrating. And here's another frustrating thing as well. When I got that coronavirus disease, which you can listen back to in the coronavirus episode,

I sort of lost my ability to write prose. I don't know if a part of my brain died. We don't really understand coronavirus yet. But I came out of that disease just wanting to write poems, just wanting to write poems. And I hadn't written poems in years. But they just started to flow out of me. Like a man who's been heavily constipated. And then takes some sort of special poo drug. That's the sort of really on the money type figurative language. That finds its way into my excellent poems.

So I just started writing these poems. And I was like, well, we'll just put, you know, we'll put the book on the back burner. I'll be writing the poems. And then I read out one of my poems on the air, Marlon Brando 9-11. And I could not believe the positivity that I got off the back of that poem. You can go back and listen to the Marlon Brando 9-11 episode of the James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Program.

Plan! What's it called? The James Donald Forbes McCann Catamaran Plan. Okay. That's one of like 70 poems that I've been writing. Every night I wake up and my wife is asleep next to me and I go, ah, it's a poem. And I turn and I bang, click on my phone,

clickety-clack, click, clack, clack, and my wife starts to stir and she goes, what's going on, darling? What's going on? And I say, poem o'clock, honey! And I churn out another poem. Ladies and gentlemen of the James Donald Fools McC and Catamaran Plan, I have enough poems for a book now. I have a book of poems ready to go. And what shall I do with that? Shall I try and publish my poems somewhere? Stuff that takes forever. I've already got one thing that I'm waiting to publish.

I can't wait around all day. I've got to start making some money for this boat. It's time for another plan. And so I am proud to announce my new book of poems. I say new book of poems, first book ever of poems or otherwise, Marlon Brando 9-11. That's the current working title for the collection. Yes, it contains my Marlon Brando 9-11 poem, and it contains many other beautiful poems that everyone will love. That's what I'm thinking of calling it,

Marlon Brando 9-11, Beautiful Poems That Everyone Will Love, by James Donald Forbes McCann of Catamaran Press. I've been looking at the different ways to bring out a book and i believe that if i self-publish through amazon and if we charge say 25 for the book plus postage and i think that's about the mark of what people seem to charge for books i'll be making about $10 per book that we can put towards the catamaran plan. Now, isn't that exciting? I mean, I don't know how many copies of this book I'm going to sell, but half a million dollars. What's half a million divide 10? 50,000? 50,000. People sell 50,000? People sell 50,000 books all the time. 50,000 books are probably selling right now.

And if these poems really are beautiful poems that everybody will love, can it fail? Yes, no one wants to buy a book of poems. Well, no one wants to buy a book of someone else's poems. You know the last big book of poems to be successful? Shakespeare's Sonnets, about 500 years ago. But these poems, maybe I'm prejudiced because they're my poems, but I believe they're so excellent, we may manage to sell 50,000 copies of this book. Now, of course, yes, taxes, right? So that might not get us the whole way there, even if we do profit

$500,000 and get that boat. But there are other plans to talk about that might make up the taxes. Anyway, Marlon Brando 9-11. Well, that poem is all about that pre- 9-11 feeling. That sort of magical late 90s colourful Batman type grooviness. You know what I'm saying? You understand? That like Batman and Robin type.

Wow. So, Marlon Brando, 9-11, beautiful poems that everyone will love. I am going to publish that book. I say self-publish, but really it's through a company. Well, for tax reasons, it is actually self-published. But if it goes really well, other tax reasons might necessitate setting up a company. God, I want to set up a company. Don't feel afraid to go and listen to that wonderful episode with my accountant.

Listen, here's what I'm saying, and I'm sorry it's taking so long. listen to that wonderful episode with my accountant. Listen, here's what I'm saying, and I'm sorry it's taking so long. I have a book of poems, Marlon Brando, 9-11, that will be coming out September 10. There's a lot to do before then. There's a lot to do. Number one, finishing the book of poems. Number two, I guess a cover, getting a cover on the book of poems. That's probably important that it's a good cover. I tried to use the Amazon self-publishing cover creator. I just got lots of pictures of eggs. I thought, but there are no poems here about eggs. I'm not much of a graphic designer, so upcoming interview with a graphic designer to get the cover for the book.

We'll see if we can get that dirt cheap. Because we, of course, want to limit expenditure. Promotional activities for the book. That must be undertaken. A promotional tour? Perhaps that will be announced soon. Marlon Brando, 9-11, Catamaran Press. Yes! This will be occupying the podcast and my time at least until then.

Why September 10? Because it's before 9-11. Here's another reason. It's a great time for a book to come out if you want to have Christmas presents for people. Smart, smart. And then I thought, but James, how can we do something for the Patreon people the people who have stood by you what can we give them and so here's what I've decided to do I'm going to record an audio book of my poems and release that exclusively for the patrons now when my real

book comes out you'll get a copy of that book but let me tell you we lost a substantial amount of money sending two mugs out to every Patreon, even the ones who live in Germany and pay like a very small amount of euros monthly. So the money is not necessarily there to mail everybody who joins the Patreon a copy of Marlon Brando 9-11, especially if they're not cheap to print. Well, they'll be quite cheap to send, I think, because it's just 109 pages. That's the self-imposed limit that I've set on myself, because after that point it starts costing more money. Listen. So an audiobook going out to everybody, and maybe an e-book as well, who's on the Patreon. Consider joining the Patreon. You get the weekly James Donald Forbes McCann catamaran planned Captain's Log podcast.

Can I just take a moment in between talking about the plans to say I'm very stressed? Not at all because of the book of poems, but because we're moving house, because our landlords, they've decided they want to live in adelaide and they're coming to live here and um oh my dad's living with us at the moment various reasons and oh highly stressful you know i not to make any announcements but who knows how many children will be living at this new house we We've got two kids already. And you know, with the Catholicism, a new child could be along any day.

Who knows? Question mark. Not talking about it on the air. I'm just trying to say, good golly, good golly, good golly, good golly. There's a lot of things going on. There's a lot. golly, there's a lot of things going on. There's a lot. Okay, plan number two. So that's plan number one discussed. Moving on through to plan number two. Post-COVID, I had a bit of a manic high when I was allowed out of the house and I went over to a videographer and I said, I've had an idea where I have a hundred dollars and we'll make money, buy things at an op shop, sell them, turn it over, buy a boat. And he managed to parse what I was saying into some sort of show. And we've shot, edited and uploaded the first episode of Thrift to a Million. And here's me on Thrift to a Million.

Just a little clip from the video of me talking about what it is. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to go to an op shop. I'm going to spend $100 at the op shop on things that are of extreme excellence in taste then I'm going to sell that $100 worth of stuff on the internet and I think make back at least double the money $200, we make $400 if we do that 15 times the normal length of a season, we will have made over a million dollars. In fact, we will have made, I think, if my math is correct, $1.6 million. That's

enough for me to have $500,000 both. That's enough for you to have your $100,000 cut. That's enough for me to have a sweet milli. This is my latest scheme. I'm calling it Thrift to a Million. Thrift to a Million. Are you ready? Let's do it. Let's do it right now. Come on.

Come on. Come on. It's just dawning on me now that maybe I've done something extremely silly by launching these two things simultaneously. Like maybe it would have been good to do one and then the other and just why do it together? Because that's how life is. Nothing happens for a long time and then way too much happens at once. That's how life is.

Affirmation. And we just have to be strong enough to get it done when the time occurs. Could I have put off Marlon Brando 9-11? I could have had that come out in November, yes. But then, well, people might not have had time to buy it for Christmas and it wouldn't tie in with the title of the book. That would have been very silly. And could I have further delayed the coming out of the Thrift to a Million episode one?

Yes. But my videographer needs money and he gets a percentage. So we need to do that as well. We must just do the, do I have to do both of these things while I'm in the process of putting all my boxes in books and moving house? I think you meant to say books and boxes. Oh Lord. But that's how life is. That's how life is. So Thrift to a Million, that's out now on YouTube. And Marlon Brando 9-11, I'm figuring out how to do that on Amazon. And boy, oh boy, before it gets published, because I think, you know, you just have to upload like a file, right?

And then you click yes. And then within a couple of hours, that's up and about on Amazon. So I'm not worried about the technical side of it. up and about on Amazon. So I'm not worried about the technical side of it. I've ordered a draft copy from Amazon just to see if it's of acceptable quality. It doesn't need to be lined with gold, but it would be nice if it was, you know, the right size and printed acceptably. acceptably? Is it right to work with Amazon or are they an evil company? I don't know. I mean, sadly, no matter who you work with, your book ends up on Amazon eventually, I do believe, and I buy stuff from Amazon all the time. Golly, why do I always find a moral conundrum only when I stand to profit from something? You know what I'm saying? Like I was thinking about these op

shops, like I buy stuff in op shops all the time. I subsist on op shops. And then I was thinking, well, is it moral to buy things from an op shop and to sell them on the internet? You know? And then I thought, shut up, Jimmy!

You've bought things from nice shops before, haven't you? That someone's picked up at an op shop and when you were buying it and spending your money, you didn't mind. But when you're on the other side of the equation, you might profit and buy a boat. All of a sudden then, all the quandaries. That's an excuse for failure. You're trying to moralise your way out of success. I don't know. I don't know. But those are the two

projects we're doing and so many things to do for the poetry book. I've got to get the right poems in the book. I've got to organise some sort of book tour. I probably should speak to some poets and find out the lay of the land. Maybe I'll even try and get some of the poems placed at poetry and publications type thing. Try and build up some hype. Oh, we need a cover. I'm talking with someone soon about potentially designing a cover.

I wonder how that much... I wonder how that... I think you meant to say, I wonder how much that costs. You know what I'm saying? Anyway. Cigarette? No, no, I never touch them. Fair.

I suck them down like Coca-Cola. Well, it gives to feeling good all the time. so so I'm still feeling good all the time. Thank you. There's to feeling good all the time. There's to feeling good all the time. If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you. We know how life goes.

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