# Create your first ebook with Scribora

A complete walkthrough from source material to outline, chapters, and a finished PDF or EPUB.

Canonical: https://www.scribora.ai/docs/getting-started
Category: Getting started
Last reviewed: 2026-09-29

## What Scribora expects

Scribora is source-first: you begin with material you already have, not an empty topic prompt. Notes, transcripts, links, PDFs, and audio give the system the substance it should organise and write from.

A project then moves through four visible phases: Gather, Analyze, Plan, and Write. Publishing tools become available once the book has enough generated content.

- Gather: add the material the book should be grounded in.
- Analyze: turn raw material into a structured knowledge base.
- Plan: generate and edit the chapter outline.
- Write: generate, review, and refine chapters before export.

## The shortest path to a finished book

1. **Create a project** — Choose a project name and topic. You can also seed subreddit sources and set a target country before creation; chapter, language, tone, and positioning controls remain editable on the project page.
2. **Add sources** — Paste notes, add URLs, or upload source files. More useful source material usually produces a more specific outline.
3. **Build the knowledge base** — Let Scribora analyse the collected material before asking it to plan the book.
4. **Generate the outline** — Review the chapter sequence before spending credits on full chapter generation.
5. **Write and review** — Generate chapters, edit them where needed, and use Pro refinement features when the project has Pro access.
6. **Export** — Download the finished manuscript as PDF or EPUB when the export status is ready.

## Start free, then choose how to finish

The Free account is designed to let you build a real project and preview the workflow before paying. When you want to finish the book, you can either buy a project-scoped one-off book edition or use a recurring plan.

One-off book purchases do not change your account subscription. They unlock the selected project only.

> Current prices and credit allowances are shown live on the pricing page and in the pricing guide; the docs do not duplicate those values.

## What actually unlocks each phase

The workflow does not advance because you clicked Next. The project state drives it: at least one gathered source unlocks Analyze; a built knowledge base unlocks Plan; an outline unlocks Write; and the Publish section is rendered only when the export status reports that publishing is available.

Scraping, analysis, outlining, and writing are background jobs. While one is active, the workflow keeps the progress state inside the current step and explicitly allows you to leave the page while it runs.

## The free sample is part of a full book plan

A new project is planned at the normal full-book chapter count even on Free. Free does not create a special two-chapter outline. At Write time, Scribora calculates how many remaining chapters the current balance can afford; if only a subset is affordable, it writes that subset and leaves the rest planned rather than pretending the short sample is a finished ebook.