In 1986, Phillips wrote an autobiography, "California Dreamin': The True Story of the Mamas and the Papas", released just weeks after her former husband's autobiography, "Papa John". In it, she describes events such as her first meeting with Cass Elliot, winning 17 straight shoots at a crap table in San Juan, Puerto Rico when the band was broke and could not afford the airfare back to the United States mainland, and how her writing credit on "California Dreamin'", which still nets her royalties, was "the best wake-up call" she ever had; she was asleep in a New York hotel room when husband John Phillips woke her to help him finish the new song that he was writing.