It was written by Yan Shigu, Kong Yingda, and Zhangsun Wuji, with Wei Zheng as the lead author.

In the third year of Zhenguan of the Tang dynasty (629), Emperor Taizong of Tang ordered Fang Xuanling to supervise the completion of the Book of Sui, which was being compiled around the same time as other official histories were being written.

The format used in the text follows the composite historical biography format (斷代紀傳體) established by Ban Gu in the Book of the Later Han with three sections: annals (紀), treatises (志), and biographies (傳).

[1] The extensive set of 30 treatises, sometimes translated as "monographs", in the Book of Sui was completed by a separate set of authors and added in 656 – 20 years after the original text was completed.

The treatises on classics (經籍) are especially important because the Book of Sui is the only standard history including such a section since the Book of Han and contains essential bibliographical information for the period from the Later Han (25–220) to the Sui dynasty.