Author Support Organizations – A number of national and international organizations support different kinds of authors, with professional services, as well as advocacy efforts.  Below we list and describe the principle US-based author organizations.

• Authors Alliance – An organization (established 2014) interested in promoting distribution of their works. This organization is explicitly aimed at representing the interests of academic scholarly authors.
•   Association of Independent Authors (AIA; est. 2009) – Serves self-published authors.
•   Authors Guild – This organization primarily represents trade fiction authors, and has been very active in litigation.  The Authors Guild has spearheaded the Authors Guild v. Google lawsuit targeting Google BookSearch, and also targeted library digitization, preservation, and indexing projects in Authors Guild v. HathiTrust.  
•   National Writers Union – A labor union (UAW-affiliated) that represents freelance writers. Brought theTasini v. New York Times litigation that requires database companies and publishers to get permission from authors before re-publishing previously licensed content in electronic databases. Frequently advocates on behalf of authors in negotations and policy disputes with publishers and media companies. Most members are book authors or journalists.
• “Collective licensing organizations” collect royalties, licensing, and other fees from users of copyrighted materials.  In the US, the Copyright Clearance Center (“CCC”) collects licensing fees from organizations, including universities and libraries.  ProQuest also sells copies of dissertations published through ProQuest, and collects royalties for those. (See this ProQuest support page for more information about registering your address with ProQuest.)  CCC, ProQuest, and other collective licensing organizations may periodically distribute royalties to authors who hold copyrights on their works, and are registered with those organizations.