I’m always hoping to find new brands of American-made notebooks. I was not familiar with Guided Products or their ReWrite brand of notebooks until they contacted me and sent some samples for review, so it was a pleasant discovery!

I received quite a selection of samples. ReWrite notebooks come in 3 sizes, with ruled, plain, squared, and dot-grid options. The small notebooks come in shrinkwrapped 4-packs, and the medium and large sizes are sold in 3 packs. All sizes are 48 pages.

The notebooks are very simple– plain brown cardboard covers, with no branding except on the lower back cover. My first impression about the 3.5 x 5.5″ pocket size notebook was that it was actually a bit smaller than a Moleskine Cahier or Field Notes notebook– but this was an illusion, as they are actually the same size. (Shown below with a hardcover pocket Moleskine and a Field Notes for size comparison.)

The main difference is that the spine here is squared off and the pages are glued in rather than sewed or stapled in a signature. This makes the spine of the notebook somewhat stiffer when you first open it.

It can be opened pretty flat, but you have to force it a bit, and you may see the spine between the pages, especially at the front and back of the notebook. The pages are perforated throughout. Some people would no doubt prefer a sewn or stapled binding without perforations, but others will like being able to easily tear out pages.

The notebook is quite flexible. Though it is thicker than a standard Field Notes, and the cardboard cover is somewhat thicker than what Field Notes usually uses, it bends a bit more easily. Another difference I noticed is that the corners are rounded to a smaller diameter than Field Notes.

The squared paper has somewhat larger squares than the Moleskine shown for comparison. The lines are brown, and somewhat thicker. You can also see the bright white color of the paper in comparison to the cream-colored Moleskine. The paper felt good to write on with my usual pens, and show-through was a little better than average. Bleed-through was about average for most pens, and a little bit worse than average with fountain pens. The paper is acid-free, and recycled.

ReWrite notebooks are available at Amazon or directly from the Guided Products website, where quantity discounts are offered on larger orders. At $13.99 suggested retail price for a 4-pack of small notebooks, they are a great value for an American-made product of this quality. Their plain covers are a nice alternative to over-branding of certain other notebooks. And Guided Products offers custom-printed covers too, starting at only $4.41 each for a minimum of 100 small notebooks with one-color front cover art, with prices dropping for larger orders. And in the meantime, you can enter the giveaway for a chance at some of my extra samples! Each winner will get at least 2 packs of notebooks (not all will still be in shrinkwrap).

Four randomly chosen winners will be selected from entries received in any or all of these ways: