Your Teaching, in a Book Your Church Can Keep
You preach a message once and it is gone by Tuesday. A book keeps it in people’s hands, in your voice, long after the series ends.
Dictate is a book-writing service for pastors, ministers and ministry leaders. You talk with an AI interviewer by phone for up to 15 hours, drawing on your sermons, teaching and testimony; we write a full nonfiction book from your own words, in your voice. You review every chapter and own 100% of the book and its royalties. Our goal is a finished manuscript in 4 to 8 weeks, at your pace.
Why so many pastors have a book they never write
You write every week already. Sermons, lessons, devotionals, counsel. The problem isn’t material; it is that a book needs a different shape and months of quiet hours, and ministry doesn’t leave many of those.
Most pastors we talk to have a series they come back to, a message that changed their own life, or a testimony people keep asking them to tell again. That is the book. The interviews give it a shape without asking you to find the hours to write it.
What a book does for a ministry
A pastor’s book serves the church first and the wider audience second.
- Small groups and classes: chapters become a study your people can work through together.
- Discipleship that travels: members give the book to family and friends who would never visit.
- Conferences and guest preaching: hosts invite the pastor who wrote the book on the subject.
- Ministry support: book sales and a book table can support a mission, a building fund or a new plant, if you choose.
- Legacy: your teaching stays available to the next generation of your congregation.
Scripture, sermons and the questions to settle first
Quote the translation you preach from. Bible publishers set their own limits on how much text a book may quote without written permission, and the copyright page names the translation. Tell us which one you use and we keep quotations consistent with it.
If you wrote your sermons as a church employee, it is worth a conversation with your board about who holds the rights to that material before you publish. Most churches are glad to release it to the pastor, and it is better settled in writing at the start.
Stories about members, counseling situations or people in crisis need the same care you give them from the pulpit: names changed, details softened, and permission where a person could recognize themselves. You review every chapter, so nothing is published that you haven’t approved.
Why pastors like talking their book
You are a speaker before you are a writer. In phone interviews you teach the way you teach on Sunday, and the chapters are written from your own words, so your voice, your illustrations and your convictions come through. Nothing is invented, and theology is never added that you didn’t say.
How the interview process works
Your part is talking and reviewing. Everything else is done for you, remotely.
A strategy call
We talk about who the book is for, what it needs to do for you, and what you already have: talks, notes, articles, recordings. We confirm the scope of your book on the call.
Research before you talk
Before your first interview, Dictate researches you and your field, so the questions start where your expertise starts instead of at the basics.
Phone interviews with Silas
You talk with Silas, our AI interviewer, by phone at times you choose, usually once or twice a week. Up to 15 hours of conversation in total. No writing and no homework.
Chapters from your own words
Chapters are written from your interview transcripts as you go, in your voice. Nothing is invented: every story and claim comes from you or your uploaded material.
You review and approve
You read every chapter in your author portal, leave notes and approve it. A sentence only you can confirm, like a date or a number, is flagged for you to check.
Ready to publish
You get print-ready and ebook files, a custom cover, Amazon copy and an Author’s Toolkit, set up to publish in your own accounts.
A realistic timeline
Our goal is your finished manuscript in 4 to 8 weeks. Your interview and review pace sets the timeline, so a busy month moves it and a free week speeds it up.
- Week 1Strategy call, research on you and your field, and your first interview.
- Weeks 2 to 5One or two interviews a week. Chapters arrive in your portal as you go.
- Weeks 5 to 8You review, ask for changes and approve each chapter. Then the files are prepared.
- After approvalYou publish in your own accounts, on your own launch date.
Books for Pastors: Questions
Can our church buy copies in bulk for small groups or the book table?
Yes. You publish in your own account, so you order author copies at the printer’s cost, in whatever quantity you need, with no markup from us.
Can I make a family edition, for example a book of letters to my children?
Yes. You own the print-ready files, so you can print a private family edition through a print-on-demand printer without listing it for sale, alongside or instead of a public edition.
Can Christian bookstores and libraries order the book through IngramSpark?
Yes. Your files are prepared for Amazon KDP and for IngramSpark. IngramSpark lists your book in the Ingram catalog that bookstores and libraries order from. Both accounts are in your name, so royalties come straight to you.
Who owns the rights, me or the church?
You do. You own 100% of the copyright and keep 100% of the royalties. Dictate claims no ownership of your book and takes no royalties, and your publishing accounts are in your name. If the material started as sermons you wrote for the church, settle that with your board before you publish.
What does the speaking help include? I want to preach at other churches and conferences.
Every book comes with an Author’s Toolkit: bios, Amazon copy and quote graphics. Optional marketing packages add a speaker one-sheet with talk topics, and the largest adds a keynote outline and speaking pitches. We help you get ready to be booked; nobody can honestly promise the bookings.
I’m a preacher, not a writer. Will this sound like me?
You don’t need to be. You talk on the phone with Silas, our AI interviewer, and the chapters are written from your own words, in your voice. Your job is to talk and to review. If you can preach it, you can talk it, and it will read the way you preach.
Your Message Deserves More Than One Sunday
Start with the free training. See how the teaching you already give becomes a book in your own voice.
