Over the decades, I’ve interviewed hundreds of people for news stories, profiles, book research, and more. But I can count with my ten fingers the number of times I’ve been interviewed as an author.
And one of my favorites — “Setting That Works” — was not a true interview where someone asked me questions and I answered them, but an interview I wrote myself and forwarded to a writer who did a light edit and then published it.
So, since I have answers ready, but no one has shown up to ask me questions, I’m going that route again. Here then, is my interview with…well, me.
How did Pirates of Sausalito come about?
I live in Tam Valley, two miles from the Waldo Point houseboat harbor, in Sausalito, where close to 300 floating homes are docked and where, for decades, there was conflict between the artists, hippies, and squatters who lived there and the police, city leaders, and developers determined to evict them and build docks to attract more affluent residents. What became known as the “houseboat wars.”
The more I learned about the turbulent history of the houseboat wars, the more I thought it would make a promising setting for a murder mystery. Conveniently, I’m an actor in a local community theater troupe called the Tam Valley Players, which has performed a murder mystery every year for almost two decades.
I pitched the idea for the play to the troupe and got the green light.
But how did your play become a novel?
That’s an easy question. I finished writing the play in the summer of 2020, during the early months of the pandemic, and I had no idea if and when live theater would ever come back, so I thought, well, if we can’t perform this, why don’t I turn it into a novel?
That turned out to be harder than I expected.
Why was it harder?
I’m glad you asked. First off, it was easier than starting with a blank page. No doubt about that. I had a story full of drama, snappy and funny dialogue, and colorful characters. There was lots of action too — like the houseboaters resisting eviction by jumping into dinghies and pushing away police boats with oars. Also a sword fight.
In the play, I went for laughs, and the play was funny, when we finally performed it, in March 2023. We got lots of laughs, and that was more important than three-dimensional characters or cleverly placed clues.
The challenge in translating the play to a novel was tone. Here’s what one beta reader of the novel, who also saw the play and very much enjoyed it, said: “The play works well as a farce works because the action is fast, and it’s Saturday night and we’re all ready for a laugh. We’re happy to watch comically farcical characters played by actors free to go over the top. But reading a novel is different.”
My problem was that I wanted to keep as much of the humor as I could, but so much of it was embedded in the farcical elements of the play, and relied on ridiculous caricatures instead of three-dimensional characters.
How did you address that?
The primary way was by delving into the interior thoughts and emotions of the characters — there’s none of that in the play. I narrated the story from ten different points of view, including the murder victim and the murder. That changed the novel significantly because some of the characters became different than they’d been in the play, and one in particular, the police chief Tin Holland, turned into the main character.
I was happy with how the multiple points of view gave the characters more depth, but it made my life as a writer harder.
When I shared the almost-final draft with beta readers, I realized I had more to do. There most common theme to the feedback was that too many characters were not realistic or sympathetic.
In my rewrite, I “fixed” that problem by first toning down the farcical elements more than I already had, and then, more importantly, by finding opportunities to show the characters having empathy for other characters. I ended up with a 12-page document titled, “Add depth and empathy to characters.”
For example, my self-absorbed pirate character Honest reflects on his sister Fate’s grief and guilt over their parents’ car accident. Which created more sympathy for her as well as for him.
I understand you narrated an audiobook of Pirates of Sausalito. Was that your first time?
Yes, and it was thrilling to read my words out loud into a professional microphone and audio setup. The audiobook was produced by Pro Audio Voices, and its founder, Becky Parker Geist, a friend and colleague I know through the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association (BAIPA), narrated the women’s parts. I narrated the men’s.
The audiobook brought the characters to life again. Like the actors did in the play. Though I reviewed the audio enough times that I lost all perspective. I look forward to listening to the audiobook again in a year or two when I’ve forgotten enough of it that I can appreciate it more like a new listener.
The audiobook is available wherever you find your audiobooks.
Anything else you’d like to add?
Pirates of Sausalito is my shortest book and one reason is that it started as a play, and my experience as an actor was that our plays were frequently too long. No audience member ever said, “that was terrific, but too short.” But the biggest reason is that because of the pandemic, I had two years between finishing the first draft and starting rehearsals, so I kept cutting, and every cut made the play better.
I used to have trouble cutting my precious words, but that’s no longer the case. I want readers to keep turning the pages, so I keep things moving. I did the same with the Pirates novel. It’s hard to know if I sacrificed literary merit for pace, but if I did, that was intentional.
That seems like a good time to end. Thank you for your time.
But I have more to say.
We’re already at 1,000 words. Save it for the next interview.
One more final thing. Indulgent perhaps, but fun. When I’m not writing novels or interviews with myself, I might be acting in murder mystery at our local community theater. We just performed “Murder on the Bocce Court,” where I played a pompous French bocce player. I also designed the yard sign and program. Here are a couple photos and short video.
The audiobook of my fourth novel, Pirates of Sausalito: Houseboat Wars Murder Mystery, is now available widely. Here’s how it got produced and what I learned from the process.
1. Hire a Professional Audiobook Producer
Before the pandemic, I had never listened to an audiobook. My first one was The Perfect Spy, by John LeCarré, which was fabulous, and I was dazzled by the virtuoso performance of the narrator, Michael Jayston, who brought to life so many intriguing characters, each with their own distinct voice, accent, and cadence.
A couple years ago, once I was a regular audiobook listener, I explored the possibility of recording my first novel, Bones in the Wash: Politics is Tough. Family is Tougher. I reached out to Becky Parker Geist, a friend, author, and fellow board member of BAIPA (Bay Area Independent Publishers Association). She’s also founder and president of Pro Audio Voices, an audiobook producer.
Bones in the Wash is a longish book — 122 thousand words, 420 pages — and an audiobook would be more than 15 hours long. There’s a wide range in what professionally produced audiobooks cost per finished hour, from $200 to $800, or even more. I decided a Bones in the Wash audiobook would be too expensive.
Hiring a professional audiobook production company is not the only path. I could have recorded it myself, and, now that I’ve done it once, I might consider that option in the future. But I was grateful to record with the help of an experienced team — most of my writing, publishing, and marketing is a one-man show. I also wanted it to be as professional sounding as the John LeCarré audiobook.
It’s also possible to hire narrators who are paid through a cut of the sales, usually about half. But experienced audiobook narrators are wary of such revenue-sharing arrangements for good reason — they don’t want to put in their time with no guarantee of a reasonable return.
2. Choose a Shorter Audiobook Because It Costs Less to Produce
My fourth and most recent novel, Pirates of Sausalito, is also my shortest. Only 70,000 words, 308 pages, and about 8 hours long. So it cost significantly less to produce. Plus it was adapted from a play that I wrote and directed in 2023 — “Sausalypso Houseboat Wars Murder Mystery” — and it retains a lot of the play’s dialogue, so it’s well suited for an audiobook.
I took the plunge. I love listening to audiobooks and I wanted my novel to be available in that format.
After discussing the various options, Becky and I agreed on what’s called a “full cast” audiobook, with two narrators who give each character a distinct voice. She would narrate the women’s parts. I would narrate the men’s.
3. Buy High-Quality Recording Equipment
Once I signed on with Pro Audio Voices, I got an orientation, over Zoom, with Becky and production coordinator Elias Khalil.
Elias created a recording script from a pdf of the novel, marked up with sound effects and other relevant notes. He also set up a meeting for me with Tristan Wright, who helped me pull together my home studio setup.
Tristan recommended the Rode NT1 Studio Kit, which included a microphone, audio interface, shockmount, pop filter, and cables. That ran me $350.
Becky would be recording in her professional studio in Portland, and I would be in my “study,” a seven-foot by eleven-foot shed next to the house, crammed with books, which, according to Tristan, are good for absorbing sound. There was a less expensive option for the recording equipment and I asked Tristan if paying $200 more would make a noticeable difference. He said it would, so I went with his recommendation.
Becky and I each had our own microphone and recording software, so when we were recording, over Zoom, my track was recorded on my computer, and hers on hers. We both wore headphones, so when Becky read her lines, my mic did not pick up her narration and vice versa. The audio editor mixed the tracks together to produce the final audio.
4. Develop Distinct Voices for Different Characters
I am an actor and played one of the roles in the play, plus I’ve read every scene in Pirates out loud at least once to my writing group. I was confident about delivering the lines dramatically, with oomph and feeling, but worried about creating distinct character voices for the six primary male characters.
I emailed Becky about this concern and she responded not with an email, but a voice memo, going over about a dozen different ways to distinguish voices. Here’s a brief excerpt demonstrating three of the ways.
Becky Voice Memo
I came up with voices for each of the characters. Some were easy, like greedy developer Fenton Felton, the melodramatic villain, who’s determined to evict all the hippie houseboaters to build his luxury marina. I used a gravelly and bombastic voice for him.
One character voice I had a tough time pulling off consistently was Huck Hennessee, Fenton Felton’s sniveling sidekick. I delivered his lines with a low-pitched voice, lower than I ever talk in real life. That low pitch made it harder to project, so I had to be sure my mouth was closer to the mic.
We started recording at the end of last May, with one two-hour recording session the first week, three the second week, and two the third. I enjoyed the recording, though it was demanding, especially the chapters where I narrated multiple characters. I liked the sound of the words coming out of my mouth and I felt good about the tightness of the writing and the cleverness of the dialogue.
5. Use Music and Sound Effects, But Don’t Overdo It
When I adapted the play into the novel, I decided to tell the story through the first-person point of view of nine characters. That was tricky because one of those characters was the murder victim, another was the murderer, and almost all the rest were suspects. I like reading books with multiple points of view, but it can be challenging for readers to keep track of who’s narrating. To address that, I put the point-of-view character’s name and a brief description at the beginning of each chapter.
For the audiobook, we decided to add a musical “sting” at the start of each chapter to help the listener track which character was narrating. A sting is a short musical phrase used in broadcasting and films to introduce or end a scene or amplify the drama. One sting we’re all familiar with is the “Dun dun duuun!” in suspense movies.
Elias and Becky proposed musical stings for all the characters and some of their suggestions were perfect, like the pirate riff for Honest, the houseboat pirate. But many were more symphonic than I imagined and did not evoke the late 1970s as much as rock and roll would.
Fortunately, there were many other options available, and I listened to hundreds of music clips and agonized over what worked best for each character. I was happy with how it turned out.
You can hear the musical stings and description for each character below, in the cast list that comes at the beginning of the book. Each chapter starts with one of these musical stings.
Cast of Characters
One change, which we came up with while we were recording, was the maniacal laugh of my villain, Fenton Felton. In the play, there were five or six times when Fenton Felton unleashed this laugh. But when I adapted the play into the book, I had to describe that laugh. For example: “He laughs, a deep, loud baritone laugh, like a maniacal melodrama villain.”
Because we were recording the book, we decided it made more sense to deliver the laugh instead of describing it. Like this:
Fenton Felton’s Laugh
We started with more sound effects than we ended up with. Some, like a clip of water lapping that faded away as the narration started, worked well to establish the Sausalito waterfront where much of the story takes place. But there were also sound effects like truck wheels screeching on gravel that seemed distracting, so we cut those and stuck with the descriptions from the book.
6. Don’t Sweat Mistakes, Just Start the Sentence Again
I was worried about making mistakes during the recording, but I needn’t have. We both made mistakes, but not that many, and there was some noise from leaf blowers. We stopped, paused for two seconds, went back a sentence, and started again. The editor deleted the mistakes and the pauses.
The editor also flagged sentences or paragraphs that we needed to re-record, usually just a sentence or two here and there. I was sent what they called a “pickup packet,” which identified each new block of text to record again and the reason for having to redo it.
7. Proof, Proof, and Proof Again
I have been proof reading since I was sports editor of my high school newspaper, but never before have I proof listened.
This was the most tedious part of the project and took longer than the recording. When I found things I wanted changed, then I needed to review the audio again, after the changes were made. The kinds of nit-picky changes I asked for included shortening some of the musical stings, removing some sound effects, and deleting pauses that seemed too long.
Once everything was finalized, the Pro Audio Voices team took over and got the final audio distributed to the various places where potential listeners can find it — Audible, Spotify, Apple Books, AMPlify Audiobooks™, and more.
All told, it took five months, though that was partly because of my traveling and other commitments.
I’m thrilled with how well it turned out. It was a pleasure working with the Pro Audio Voices team. Thank you so much to Becky, Elias, and Tristan for an enjoyable experience and a fabulous product. Here’s a clip of one of the chapters, between Fenton Felton and his vengeful ex-wife, Alice.
Chapter 12: I Hated You Before I Met You
8. The Marketing is More Challenging Than the Writing or Recording
The recording and production are done and in this new year, 2025, I’m focused on marketing. I know — because I’m one of them — that there are millions of audiobook listeners out there. The challenge is how to find them and let them know about Pirates of Sausalito.
If you know anyone who loves listening to audiobooks, please spread the word.
Recently, I listened to a workshop by author and book marketing expert Tim Grahl, who said he planned to give away 100,000 copies of his new book. Because he wanted it be a best-seller, and books become best-sellers through word-of-mouth. So by giving it away, he’s counting on enough readers enjoying and recommending it to others that it takes off.
I’m not expecting to give away 100,000 copies because I don’t know how I could possibly do that, BUT —
I’m thrilled to announce that the audiobook of Pirates of Sausalito: Houseboat Wars Murder Mystery is now available on AMPlify Audiobooks, narrated by Pro Audio Voices founder Becky Parker Geist, and yours truly, the author of the novel. She performs the women characters. I perform the men.
Pirates of Sausalito lends itself especially well to audio because I adapted it from a play I wrote and directed in 2023 — “Sausalypso Houseboat Wars Murder Mystery” — and is full of snappy dialogue. But of course I would say that.
Eventually it will be available through other vendors, but AMPlify Audiobooks gives the most royalties and it’s part of Becky’s company — she serves as president of the Bay Area Independent Publishers Association (BAIPA), which I am also a board member of — so please, buy it through AMPlify. If you don’t listen to audiobooks, now would be the perfect time to start. 🙂
Also, you must know someone who, like me, “reads” more books on audio than they do in paperback or ebook. Tell them.
This is my first foray into audiobooks and it was intense and fun to work with Becky and her super-professional team at Pro Audio Voices. I highly recommend them.
Also, you might enjoy this interview of me by Becky, which we did during the production. We had a blast. I hope it’s as much fun to listen to as it was to record.
P.S. Now I now have a professional microphone setup, which Pro Audio Voices helped me put together, so maybe I’ll do this again.
I was not especially looking forward to it. I enjoy the creative part of writing a book, but not so much the promotion. I’m not a natural salesman. Though I’ve become more extroverted than when I was younger, I still have enough introvert in me that the prospect of hawking my book for several hours to strangers can make me anxious. Plus I still have some of that midwestern modesty that was modeled for me by my parents and teachers.
But it was a sunny and gorgeous afternoon, my table was right across from the stage where a band was playing a peppy surf rock, so my feet were bouncing along with the beat, and I had a series of stimulating and enjoyable conversations with passersby.
I also sold nine books, one short of my admitted modest goal of ten. I passed out bookmarks too, which plugged the book and my website, and the next morning there were two online sales, which probably came from the bookmarks.
What was even better was that I was sitting in the very spot where parts of my novel took place. The scene of the crime, so to speak. That is, if you consider living on the bay without permits a crime. Yes, it’s a fictional story, but it’s based on true events, some of which happened in the Galilee Harbor area.
I sat behind a poster I made that asked the question, “Sausalito Houseboat Wars: What Really Happened?” When I noticed someone squinting to read the poster, I asked them if they knew about the houseboat wars. Many did not, or knew very little. One woman had just moved into a houseboat three months earlier, and had no idea of the tumultuous history. (There were exceptions, including an old man who said he had lived aboard an anchor-out for forty years.)
For those unfamiliar with this history, here’s a distilled version: After Marinship, the World War 2 ship factory on Richardson Bay, closed, boatbuilder Donlon Arques purchased the property — considered worthless and full of shipbuilding debris — dragged retired ferryboats onto the mudflats, and invited soldiers returning from the war to live there. Over the years, the houseboat community attracted artists, bohemians, beatniks, and hippies, many of whom built ramshackle floating homes. It was a shantytown — no permits, no sewage hookups, electricity running from long extension cords. In the late 1960s and through the 70s, the counterculture was in full bloom, and mulitple times, the city, county, and developers tried to clear out the houseboaters, who fought back with civil disobedience, street theater, monkeywrenching, and more. This conflict became known as the “houseboat wars.” Today, most of the houseboat community is as bourgeois as the rest of Sausalito, though Galilee Harbor is less so. But everyone is legal and permitted now and it’s hard to believe it used to be like a shantytown.
For more, see Sausalito Houseboat Wars: What Really Happened? on my website. There’s a slideshow of an author talk I gave in May that includes wonderful photos of the houseboat community and the conflict by Bruce Forrester and Pirkle Jones, as well as two colorful video clips from local TV news.)
After tabling at Galilee Harbor for several hours, I walked north along the waterfront, passing paddle boarders and swimmers as well as historic buildings and more houseboat harbors, I felt a strong sense of satisfaction that, even though I made up most of the book, I captured the zeitgeist of those turbulent times. It’s impossible to know for sure because so much has changed in forty-plus years and there was never one agreed-upon reality anyway, but as I told various versions of the story dozens of times Saturday, I felt increasingly confident that I got it mostly right.
One of the few ungentrified buildings from the Marinship area.
If you live in or near Marin County, you can buy the paperback at Book Passage in Corte Madera, Sausalito Books by the Bay, and Waterfront Wonder on Caledonia Street, also in Sausalito. You can also borrow it from the Sausalito and Belvedere-Tiburon libraries. You can buy the paperback online, and, through August, the ebook is on sale for 99 cents.
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