Drury has worked in the Australian book industry since 1976. A former managing editor for Harper & Row and Doubleday in Australia, he helped found the specialist visual arts publishing company Craftsman House in 1981, which became Australia's leading art book imprint. Drury worked full-time as publishing director of this company from 1989 to January 2000. He also co-edited Australian Painting Now, which was published in the UK and USA by Thames & Hudson. For a short period he was the manager of Adyar Bookshop in Sydney ... Australia's largest metaphysical bookshop.

Drury is a prolific author of books on shamanism, spirituality, and different forms of magical practice. His many books include the first serious overview of occultism in Australia: Other Temples, Other Gods (co-written with Gregory Tillet). Others include Don Juan, Mescalito and Modern Magic, The Occult Experience (the book of a major documentary released in 1985 featuring, among others, Margot Adler, Selena Fox, Alex Sanders, Janet and Stewart Farrar, and H. R. Giger), and Pan's Daughter: the first biography of Australian artist and witch Rosaleen Norton. He also authored several successful books on Australian art, including the three-volume Images series; artist Matthew Tobin (Creative Director, Urban Arts Projects [1]) describes Nevill Drury as "one of those most responsible for Aboriginal art's growth (he discovered Rover Thomas, Clifford Possum and Emily Kngwarreye)" in Dream Traces: A Celebration of Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Art by Paul Canning. His books have been translated into fifteen languages. He has been featured at many conferences and events since 1980 as a speaker and workshop facilitator on subjects such as magical visualization and shamanic drumming. He has been both an interviewer and a guest on several programs on Australian television, and recently appeared on 'Compass' (ABC-TV) as a spokesperson for the New Spirituality.