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.
On Thursday, June 6, 6:30 pm, at the Sausalito Library, and June 9, 4 pm at the Tam Valley Cabin, I’ll be giving a talk called “Sausalito Houseboat Wars: What Really Happened.”
In the late 1970s, the “houseboat wars” erupted in Sausalito on the site of Marinship, the abandoned World War II shipyard. Hippies and squatters were living free and easy on houseboats in a ramshackle shantytown, but public officials and developers set out to evict them and build new docks to attract more affluent residents. The counterculture was in full flower, and the houseboaters resisted eviction with street theater, civil disobedience, monkeywrenching, and more. All in front of TV cameras.
Join me on June 6 or June 9 for a colorful retelling of those turbulent times, including excerpts from houseboat residents and journalists, photographs by Bruce Forrester and Pirkle Jones, and video clips of TV news reports from the waterfront. I’ll also read from my new novel, Pirates of Sausalito: Houseboat Wars Murder Mystery, which is not true, but inspired by those true events. The book captures the spirit of the times, and tells the truth in its own way. (As Neil Gaiman said, “Fiction is the lie that tells the truth.”)
Four-plus years ago, before the pandemic, I pitched the idea to the community theater troupe I’m part of, the Tam Valley Players, of writing a murder mystery play set during the houseboat wars. I interviewed a number of people who were there back in the day, and did a healthy amount of research, but not all that much. I was making things up. We were going for laughs more than historical accuracy. When I finished the script in the summer of 2020, well, we had no idea when live theater might ever return. That’s when I began adapting the play script into the novel, which was published last month.
Scene from “Sausalypso Houseboat Wars Murder Mystery” in 2023, which has since been adapted into the novel, Pirates of Sausalito.
We finally performed the show, in March 2023, at the Tam Valley Community Center, where the Tam Valley Players have been performing murder mystery dinner theater shows for more than a dozen years. I directed the show and it was stressful and demanding experience — we had to postpone opening weekend because six cast and crew members got covid — but we pulled it off and got laughs and applause and a wonderful time was had by all.
Once we finished our four-performance run, I jumped into high gear to finish the novel.
Meanwhile, knowing my book would be out this spring, I reached out to a librarian at the Mill Valley Library about hosting a talk, and she connected me to the Mill Valley Historical Society, and they wanted me to talk more about the history my book is based on than the book itself. At first I was wary — I never promised historical accuracy in the play or book, and now I had to distinguish what really happened from what I imagined.
But the librarians knew what they were doing. Enough people registered for the May 1 event, we had to move from the basement meeting room to the main reading room — and it’s unlikely that many people would have come if I were talking only about my book.
To get ready for the talk, I had to put on my historian hat and plunge back into the research, but fortunately, the real history is as full of drama and colorful characters as my novel. The talk went swimmingly — as my wife, who’s tough to please, said “it could not have gone better.”
If you missed the Mill Valley Library event, I hope you can make it to one of my upcoming talks. The events are free, but registration is required.
June 6, 6:30 pm at the Sausalito Library, 420 Litho Street
June 9, 4 pm at the Tam Valley Cabin, 60 Tennessee Valley Road
P.S. You can learn more about the novel here and the history here. There’s a video on the history page of my Mill Valley Library presentation, which I encourage you to watch — but not if you’re coming to one of my talks, which will be a rerun of the library talk.
On May 1, I gave a presentation at the Mill Valley Library: ”Sausalito Houseboat Wars: What Really Happened?” Not only was I thrilled by the turnout and how well it went, the library recorded the talk and I just watched the video and it’s pretty compelling. Special thanks to Franklin Walther, Digital Services Librarian, for a fantastic job editing the video and integrating the slides into the narration.
Last fall, anticipating I would be finished with my novel, Pirates of Sausalito: Houseboat Wars Murder Mystery, I pitched a librarian on hosting an event, and she connected me with the Mill Valley Historical Society. They asked me to talk more about the history my book is based on than about the novel itself. I was wary, but it was a brilliant idea — we had a full house, in the main reading room. It’s unlikely that many people would have come if I were talking only about my book.
Here is the video, which is 50 minutes long. I’ve posted highlights below.
I have two more author talks scheduled, which will be similar to the Mill Valley Library event. Because that event was part of the Mill Valley Historical Society’s First Wednesday series, it was 95 percent history and 5 percent my book. For these upcoming events, I will continue to devote most of my time to the real history, but will give a bit more time to reading from and talking about my book.
Sausalito Houseboat Wars: What Really Happened?
June 6 (Thursday), 6:30 pm SAUSALITO LIBRARY, 420 Litho St.
June 9 (Sunday), 4 pm TAM VALLEY CABIN, 60 Tennessee Valley Road, Mill Valley
Pirates of Sausalito: Houseboat Wars Murder Mystery
It’s the 1970s, and the “houseboat wars” erupt in Sausalito on the site of Marinship, the abandoned World War II shipyard. Hippies and squatters are living free and easy on houseboats in a ramshackle shantytown, and greedy developers are determined to evict them and build new docks to attract affluent residents.
The counterculture is in full flower and the houseboaters, fearing their community will be destroyed, resist eviction with street theater, civil disobedience, monkeywrenching, and more. Like climbing into dinghies and pushing away police boats with oars. Like sinking a barge to block a pile driver. All in front of TV cameras!
Then, someone gets stabbed.
Pirates of Sausalito is fiction, but inspired by true events. As Larry Clinton, former president of the Sausalito Historical Society, said, “If it didn’t happen exactly this way, it could have.”
Imagine Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test meets Murder, She Wrote. One part hippies grooving on the waterfront and fighting the man, one part murder mystery.
The story, inspired by true events, is set in the late 1970s on the shoreline of Richardson Bay. Hippies and squatters living on houseboats in a ramshackle shantytown are threatened by city leaders and developers who want to clear out the houseboaters and build a luxury dock.
The counterculture is in full flower and the houseboaters resist eviction with street theater, civil disobedience, monkeywrenching, and more — for example, an armada of dinghies pushing away police boats with oars. All in front of TV cameras.
Then someone gets stabbed.
Imagine Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test meets Murder, She Wrote. One part hippies grooving on the waterfront, one part murder mystery. It’s a funny, fascinating, and entertaining story, and I think you’ll enjoy it.
Please buy it, read it, review it, and recommend it to everyone you see.
I’m not going to ask you again. (Well, not until a few paragraphs from now.)
Turning a play into a novel
Last year I wrote and directed ”Sausalypso Houseboat Wars Murder Mystery” at our local community theater and this novel is an adaptation and expansion of the play. I never set out to write a novel, but I finished the play script a few months into the pandemic when we had no idea when live theater might return. I started working on the novel then, and went into high gear once we wrapped up the play last March.
(Below is a photo from the play, showing the houseboaters pushing away the police boat with their oars. This really happened during the houseboat wars, though in real life, the boats were not made of cardboard.)
This is the first time I’ve adapted a play into a novel, and it was harder than I anticipated, even though two-thirds of the dialogue from the play ended up in the novel. So did all the main characters, though I changed some significantly. One of the hippie characters, for example, turns out to be an undercover spy/provocateur. That was not in the play.
The biggest difference is that the play is all dialogue and action and the novel includes the inner life of the characters as well. In the play, the actors bring the characters to life, and, of course, we perform the play in front of an audience and people laugh and laughing is contagious.
The play was funny and I wanted my novel to be funny too. But that’s a tricky proposition, especially because the play was a ridiculous cartoonish farce
The novel is still funny, or so I think, but it’s less ridiculous, less farcical, and less funny than the play.
Here’s what one beta reader so accurately stated: “Setting the play up as a farce works well because the action is fast, and the audience can sit back and take it all in. It’s Saturday night and we’re all ready for a laugh. Once the tone has been set, the viewer is happy to watch comically farcical characters played by actors free to go over the top. But reading a novel requires a different sort of audience commitment, because it takes longer, and the reader has to imagine sights, sounds, and in this case smells.”
A beta reader, for those who don’t know, is like a regular reader, except they read a pre-publication version of the book, and I ask them for honest feedback. The good news is that my beta readers were honest. That’s also the bad news. Some of the feedback was tough to hear.
The most important feedback I received, from many beta readers, was that some characters were too cartoonish and melodramatic. I took the feedback to heart, rewrote at least half the chapters, and I believe the final version is at least 10 percent better than the beta version, maybe more.
Did I say I was only going to ask you once to buy the book? Well, I lied. That’s what we fiction writers do.
My book will be free, as an ebook, this coming Monday through Wednesday, November 18-20. I’ll be promoting through book promo site The Fussy Librarian, but there’s no way I’m going to reach 100,000 potential readers, so please tell your friends and family.
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