Book Division

The NWU Book Division represents authors, contributors, and ghostwriters of books of all types in all genres and formats: fiction or non-fiction, single-author or anthology, published by large or small commercial or academic publishers or self-published, distributed on paper or as audiobooks or e-books.

The Book Division provides a place for networking, information sharing, and mutual support in our working lives as authors, especially through the NWU-BOOK email discussion list. The Book Division also takes a leading role in the NWU’s advocacy work on copyright and other issues of particular concern to book authors.

The Book Division is a national caucus within the NWU. Book authors are members of their respective local NWU chapters as well as of the Book Division.

The Book Division has published a variety of resources and advisories for authors about book contracts, copyrights, e-books, licensing, and other issues. NWU members are also eligible to receive assistance and advice from the NWU Grievance and Contract Division (GCD) on book contracts or disputes with publishers or others.

The Chair or Co-Chairs of the Book Division are unpaid member volunteers elected by the NWU’s triennial Delegate Assembly.  The current Book Division Chair elected at the 2021 Delegate Assembly is Dan McCrory, (Southern California Chapter), writingbiz@yahoo.com, phone 323-719-2173.

Contact the Book Division Chair if you would like to be part of this work or have ideas for what the Book Division should be doing.

    • Report infringements of your copyrights (including infringements by publishers) to the U.S. National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center. Reporting is essential to document the nature and extent of infringement problems.

Latest Division News

‘Grown-Up Anger’ Looks at Labor History

  Grown-up Anger: The Connected Mysteries of Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and the Calumet Massacre  of 1913 is an exciting romp through labor union history. The book, which will be released June 13, explores its subject through the lens of American music.   Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie’s protest and solidarity songs, and how they represent the […]

Do Writers Have “Moral Rights”?

The idea that writers have “moral” rights with respect to our written work may seem strange to those who think of copyright in purely propertarian terms. They might wonder: What does morality have to do with property ownership? But our writing is more than intellectual property, and our rights to our work are more than […]

‘Dunes’ Novel Inspired by Windswept Landscape

Homeport Press just published Our Lady of the Dunes, my coming-of-age novel, which takes place amid the dunes of the OuterCape of Provincetown, MA, in 1942. The dunes run along the beach nearly 40 miles, from Chatham to Provincetown, and just above them are bluffs that overlook the Atlantic Ocean. My story is of a young woman who’s sent out from Boston to live […]