A free guide, from people who make books.
The Scribe Guide is a free, complete guide to writing a nonfiction book, stage by stage. It is made openly by Scribe Media, a book writing and publishing company in Austin, Texas. You can use every part of it without signing up, paying or talking to anyone.
Who made it
Scribe Media has published more than 3,000 books, including 23 New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestsellers. Scribe helps people write and publish nonfiction books, from coaching authors who write their own to writing books from interviews with the author. The legal company is Bond Financial Technologies Holdings, LLC, doing business as Scribe Media.
Scribe sells book services, and we will not pretend otherwise. But most people who want to write a book should be able to do it well on their own, and this guide is meant to make that possible. Where a Scribe service is a natural next step, as on the last stage, we say so plainly. Everywhere else, the guide is about your book.
How the guide was written
The guide follows the order we see books actually come together: decide why and for whom, test the idea, outline, gather material, plan, draft, revise, title, finish the parts around the book, and publish. Each stage ends with a checklist so you know when you are ready for the next one.
The writing is original to this site. It draws on The Scribe Method, Scribe's book on writing and publishing, and links to the relevant chapters where they genuinely help, but it does not repeat them. Examples labeled as ours, such as sample tables of contents, reader profiles and before and after passages, were written for this guide and do not describe real books or people.
Where the facts come from
- Writing pace, chapter conventions and publishing facts come from The Scribe Method, free to read online. Each stage names the chapters it relies on.
- Scribe prices and services come from scribemedia.com/services and scribemedia.com/pricing, checked on October 20, 2026.
- Author examples come from Scribe's published success stories. Every one links to the full story on scribemedia.com, and every quote appears word for word on that page. They are among Scribe's strongest results, not typical ones.
- Outside rules and facts, such as ISBNs, copyright, fair use, citation style and retailer rules, come from the organizations that set them: Bowker, the US Copyright Office, The Chicago Manual of Style and Amazon KDP. Each is linked where it is used.
If we could not find a reliable source for a number, we left the number out.
Report an error
Rules, prices and retailer terms change. If you spot something wrong or out of date, email privacy@scribemedia.com with the page and what needs fixing, and we will correct it.
Your privacy
This site sets no cookies and runs no advertising trackers. Outlines you make in the outline builder stay in your own browser. We count page views as anonymous daily totals, with no way to tell who you are. The privacy page has the details.