We love that you care about NaNoWriMo enough to want to bring more
NaNoWriMo stuff into the world! That said, we’ve put a decade of work
into making the NaNoWriMo name a shining beacon of hope, happiness,
and deadline-driven terror for people everywhere, and we’re very
protective of the name. We do have legal protection on the name and
the logo, and we’re obligated to “defend the mark” or risk losing it.
Every year we end up spending a lot of time asking people to stop
creating and distributing unauthorized NaNoWriMo merchandise and
products. Given our tiny staff, dealing with these issues takes
precious time away from our programs. To help us put as much of our
resources as possible into our events, we ask that you adhere to the
following usage rules when using the NaNoWriMo or National Novel
Writing Month name or logo.

Municipal Liaisons and partners in our “Come Write In” programs have a
different set of permissions. Please contact us with
questions or permission requests! In the fall, it may take up to a
week to get back to you with an answer.

Logo: Please do not use our logo (or parts of our logo) on
anything without our permission.

Manufactured items: Please do not make any products bearing the
NaNoWriMo name without our permission, even if you plan on giving
those products away rather than selling them. These include t-shirts,
pencils, stickers, key chains, magnetic poetry kits, alpaca training
devices, and squirrel retardant sprays.

Flyers and handbills: We have official flyers available for
download that we’d love you to use to promote NaNoWriMo. If those
flyers don’t meet your needs, please let us know so we can make better
ones that do! Because the risk of someone seeing a homemade flyer
representing the organization and assuming it was created by us is
very high, we ask that you use our flyers.

Digital icons, Twibbons, etc.: We’re still trying to figure out
the best way to handle this. Until we come up with a genius solution,
you are welcome to make and give away digital icons bearing the
NaNoWriMo name. If you plan on selling them (or making money from
them), please get our permission first.

Software and applications: We love that you want to make
software for NaNoWriMo participants! Please do not include our name in
the name of your software or application, and please so let us know
when the software will be available for download. We might be able to
help you get the word out about it!