George Washington's Secret Navy: How the American Revolution Went to Sea (2008), ISBN 0-07-149389-1 OCLC 212627064.Benedict Arnold's Navy: the Ragtag Fleet that Lost the Battle of Lake Champlain But Won the American Revolution (2006), ISBN 0-07-146806-4 OCLC 64510314.Reign of Iron: The Story of the First Battling Ironclads, the Monitor and the Merrimack (2004) OCLC 60410100.The Only Life that Mattered: The Short and Merry Lives of Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and Calico Jack (2004) ISBN 159013060X.Spanish edition published by Ediciones B as 'La ronda del pirata' in 2007. Spanish edition published by Ediciones B as 'El negrero' in 2005. Spanish edition published by Ediciones B as 'El vigía' in 2004. He won the 2009 Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature for George Washington's Secret Navy.

Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction from the American Library Association in 2004 for his novel, Glory In The Name: A Novel of the Confederate Navy. Nelson continues to write full-time, and has published over twenty-five books, both fiction and nonfiction. Nelson currently lives in Harpswell, Maine, with Lisa and their four children, Elizabeth, Nathaniel, Jonathan, and Abigail. In 1992, Nelson completed his first novel, By Force of Arms. After living in Marina del Rey, Los Angeles, Nelson found work aboard the Golden Hinde, where he met future wife Lisa Page. He attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, Massachusetts for two years, and then transferred to UCLA, with the ambition of becoming a film director. In 1980, Nelson graduated from Lewiston High School. He expressed an interest in boats from a young age, building a skipjack in ninth grade and a canoe in eleventh. Nelson was born in Lewiston, Maine in 1962.

Nelson jame