The second chapter of Pirates of Sausalito is narrated by Dawn Felton, the daughter of Fenton Felton, the greedy developer who wants to evict the houseboaters so he can build a luxury marina. We’ve just met him in Chapter 1, where he pressures Police Chief Tin Holland to clear out the houseboaters immediately or risk losing her job. “Sink their damn boats,” he says. “Whatever it takes.” (You can listen to Chapter 1 here.)
In Chapter 2, we also meet Honest Abernathy, who, as Dawn says, “is handsome and charming, dresses like a pirate, and has more than enough low life in him to infuriate her father.” She’s no hippie, but she’s rebelled by taking up with the long-haired and flamboyant Honest, the self-proclaimed leader of the houseboat resistance. It’s her birthday and he has promised her a birthday present that will “blow her mind.”
You can listen to the whole audiobook of Pirates of Sausalito for $10. Go to AMPlify Audiobooks and use the coupon code “pirates”.
Pirates is also on the shelf at Sausalito Books by the Bay and is available at the Sausalito and Tiburon libraries. It’s also available on Audible, Spotify, Apple Books, and wherever you get your audiobooks, including Libby, the library audiobook app, where it’s free with your library card in Marin and San Francisco counties. (If your library doesn’t have it, you can request it.)
Here’s the first review I received for the audiobook.
On Wednesday, May 20, 7 pm, I’ll be giving my “Sausalito Houseboat Wars: What Really Happened” talk for Marin History Museum. It will be at the First Presbyterian Church, Fifth & E Streets, San Rafael. Tickets are $20. Get them here.
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 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 an excerpt or two from Pirates of Sausalito: Houseboat Wars Murder Mystery, which is fiction, but based on and inspired by those true events. As Larry Clinton, former president of the Sausalito Historical Society, said, “If it didn’t happen exactly this way, it could have.”
When I launched my book in May 2024, 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. They wanted me to talk more about the history my book is based on than the book itself. I was wary — I never promised historical accuracy in my 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 prep for the talk, I plunged back into the research, and fortunately, the real history is as full of drama and colorful characters as my novel. The talk went wonderfully and I’ve delivered this talk about ten times now.
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 my talk, which will be a rerun of the library talk. Below is the video, which is 50 minutes long. I’ve posted highlights below.
When I turned my play (“Sausalypso Houseboat Wars Murder Mystery”) into a novel (Pirates of Sausalito), the toughest challenge was how much to get into the characters’ heads. You don’t have to write that in a play, though it’s useful to think about.
I chose to let ten characters narrate their parts and some had inner lives very different from their public lives. Mickey Macgillicuddy, for example, lives in a tiny houseboat in Aquarius Houseboat Harbor, which developers want to turn into a luxury harbor. Mickey is a flaky burnout, but he’s also funny. He loves an audience. The first time we see Mickey is in Chapter 4, which is told from the point of view of Honest Abernathy, one of the leaders of the houseboaters’ resistance. Mickey is preening for the young woman lawyer who is helping out with legal strategy.
“Yeah,” Mickey says, “like, I went to college. Like Grateful Dead University. That’s where I got my higher education, a PhD in LSD. Hey, like, how do you know deadheads have been staying at your pad?” He pauses. “They’re like, still there.”
But Mickey is not the flaky hippie he appears to be. I can’t tell you more that that because I want you to listen to this chapter, from my audiobook. This is Micky narrating Chapter 5, “Eviction Raid.” It starts as he watches the police boats on their way into the harbor to evict the houseboaters.
[AUDIOBOOK] Pirates of Sausalito, Chapter 5. Eviction Raid (Mickey MacGillicuddy)
I would love to hear what you think. There are four chapters before this, so you’re jumping on a moving train, but this is the first time we see things through Mickey’s eyes.
Later in the book, Police Chief Tin Alley asks Mickey if it’s true he lives in a small houseboat. “It’s so small,” he says, “if I order a large pizza, I have to eat it outside.”
I have long wanted to create a “brand” for my four books to unify them. Make them look like they belong together. My books are not a series, but they share enough similarities that they do indeed belong together. But the covers do not demonstrate that.
Here are the front covers as they exist now — in the order published.
They do not look like they belong together, though the first and the fourth are close, and my intention was to redesign the other two to match.
When I Killed My Father was easy, though I have not uploaded the new cover to the two sites where I publish my books — Amazon/KDP and IngramSpark. (One of the benefits of self-publishing is that authors can upload new covers and corrected manuscripts at any time for no cost. It can be time-consuming, but it doesn’t have to be.)
Wasted has not been easy. Over the last number of years, I designed more than ten different versions of the cover and was not happy with any of them. Now I’ve got three that I think are better. I welcome your feedback.
When I designed the Wasted cover in 2015, I was pleased with it. I’d been a graphic designer for decades, but I did not realize until later that there are “rules” about book covers that I did know, one of the most important of which is that the cover telegraphs to the reader its genre. Here’s what designer Joel Friedlander, former president of Bay Area Independent Publishers Association (BAIPA), said about the Wasted cover:
Obviously the designer is skillful, but the big fail is that the book looks like nonfiction or a corporate publication, and has no trace of what must be the excitement and drama in the story.
Guilty as charged
I’ve been messing with all sorts of cover ideas for a while, and when I sought feedback on them a two years ago, more people liked the one I considered ugly than any of the others. But I didn’t like it.
This is the ugly one.
I recently created another version of the cover that I like better. Then I took the existing cover, the one that looks like a nonfiction primer on recycling and adapted it to fit the brand. Rules are made to be broken, right?
Below are these two new versions. What do you think?
So here are new front covers that all share the same branding.
And then I had another idea, to make the branding more explicit by including the tagline: “Page-turner with a Conscience.” I have used that line many times in marketing the book, during book talks, in this author letter, on my website, and on sites where I sell my book. So I took another pass at each of my novels and added that to the top.
What do you think? I value your feedback. I’m too close to my books to be as objective as I need to be. Please share your feedback in the comment area below or contact me via email at johnbyrnebarry@gmail.com.
One way or the other, I am committed to branding my books.
Now that I look at them at the small size most people will see them, the “page-turner with a conscience” is barely visible, so I probably need to scrap that idea or make it bigger.
Enjoy the rest of your summer.
P.S. You may wonder whether devoting all this time to redesigning my book covers might not have been better spent writing my current novel. The answer is surely yes, but designing taps into a different part of the brain than writing and it’s “fun.” That’s my excuse anyway.
I would love to hear from you, even if you don’t have an opinion on the covers.
Here I am on April 9 after my talk with Cheryl Popp at Sausalito Books by the Bay. (Where you can buy Pirates of Sausalito and support our local independent bookstore.) Photo by Cheryl Popp.
My New Favorite Review
When I know someone has bought or read my book, I ask for a review. It’s impossible to know if or how much they help sell books, but they do provide social proof, and I know plenty of people who pay attention to reviews for everything they buy, from books to tents to coffee thermoses. I appreciate it when a friend posts a positive review, but I’m aware their praise may be overstated because we’re friends. But when a stranger posts a positive review, well, this one below made my day.
★★★★★A Soulful, Stirring Trip Into a Forgotten Chapter of Rebellion
Pirates of Sausalito isn’t just a story, it’s a time capsule. Set in the twilight of the 1970s, it captures the raw spirit of a community fighting for its right to exist, to create, and to live outside the lines. The houseboaters of Sausalito, who were considered outsiders, artists, dreamers, stand their ground as the tide of development threatens to wash away their world. What begins as protest and performance art slowly spirals into something darker when a stabbing rocks the shantytown. The writing is immersive and sharp, but what lingers most is the idealism, the messiness of chosen family, and the fragility of freedom. With cozy mystery vibes, this novel somehow balances joy, danger, and nostalgia in equal measure. A beautiful read for anyone who’s ever loved a lost place or been part of a movement that felt like home.
Why I’m Grateful for Every Reader
It’s been one year since I launched Pirates of Sausalito, my fourth novel. Like my previous novels, it took several years to write, even though I adapted it from a play.
In the past year, I’ve sold almost 300 books and received more than 60 ratings and reviews. Which, when I’m discouraged, feels paltry given how much time and energy I’ve devoted to the writing, the publishing, and the promotion.
(I’ve also given away about 30 paperbacks to friends, family, and beta readers, and almost 2,000 free ebooks through various promotional sites. Though it’s impossible to know how many of them read the book.)
Since I launched the book last spring, I’ve also given ten author talks, which I very much enjoy.
I frequently wish I had more readers, more sales, and more acclaim, but that would be the case if I sold ten times as many books.
I cannot control Amazon’s algorithms, however, or who sees my posts on Facebook or Bluesky, or how overcrowded the marketplace is. Every year, there are more than two million books published worldwide.
In my more sanguine moments, I remind myself of that, and I am grateful for every reader I have. Despite the million options available to them, they chose to read my book.
And a good review, like the one above, can boost my mood for weeks. (Hint, hint, if you haven’t written a review, you still can.)
What I can control are my own actions — my discipline, my focus, my organization. In the past dozen years, I’ve written two plays (and directed them as well) and four novels, and I’m working on a fifth novel. I’ve given dozens of author talks. I write and send this author letter regularly. I’m in a writing group that has been meeting twice a week for more than ten years. And while I don’t write every day, I write most days, at least something.
I also remind myself that most of the time I love the creative process — sometimes I’m literally thrilled by it — and I especially enjoy the imaginary universe in my head. Sometimes ideas percolate all day long, whether I’m walking to my crossing guard corner, taking a shower, or drifting off to sleep. And when I read or listen to a book or watch a movie or TV show, I’m always paying attention to how the creators put it all together, and I borrow ideas as appropriate. Not all ideas are good, of course, but coming up with new ones is exciting. If I can’t write them down, I open up my voice memo app and dictate them.
Regardless of my visibility or sales, I am living the life of an author, of an artist.
I don’t like to throw around the word artist because it can sound pretentious, but in my heart of hearts, I’ve always wanted to be an artist and now, in the third act of my life, I am.
I am forever grateful if you’ve read any of my books, and if you’ve written any reviews. (Well, not forever, but you know what I mean.) If you’ve done neither, well, what comes to mind is the old saying that the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago and the next best time is now.
—
If you haven’t seen any of my talks about Pirates of Sausalito, below is a video of my first one, a year ago, at the Mill Valley Library, and co-sponsored by the Mill Valley Historical Society.
It was the first of my talks and the most well attended, and while I’m not the kind of person who brags about the size of my crowds, there were a lot of people there and even more have watched the video.
The talk is more about the true events that inspired the book than about the book itself, because that’s what the Mill Valley Historical Society asked for.
(Thanks to the Sausalito Historical Society and Bruce Forrester for permission to use their photographs for the slide show. And special thanks to Franklin Walther, Digital Services Librarian, for a fantastic job editing the video and integrating the slides into the narration. Far beyond the call of duty.)
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 second chapter of Pirates of Sausalito is narrated by Dawn Felton, the daughter of Fenton Felton, the greedy developer who wants to evict the houseboaters so he can build a luxury marina. We’ve just met him in Chapter 1, where he pressures Police Chief Tin Holland to clear out the houseboaters immediately or risk losing her job. “Sink their damn boats,” he says. “Whatever it takes.” (You can listen to Chapter 1 here.)
I chose to let ten characters narrate their parts and some had inner lives very different from their public lives. Mickey Macgillicuddy, for example, lives in a tiny houseboat in Aquarius Houseboat Harbor, which developers want to turn into a luxury harbor. Mickey is a flaky burnout, but he’s also funny. He loves an audience. The first time we see Mickey is in Chapter 4, which is told from the point of view of Honest Abernathy, one of the leaders of the houseboaters’ resistance. Mickey is preening for the young woman lawyer who is helping out with legal strategy. 
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