diff --git a/README.asciidoc b/README.asciidoc
index cf1e046df892d..d5c693d26d4cc 100644
--- a/README.asciidoc
+++ b/README.asciidoc
@@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ generate the HTML version of the docs:
 [source,bash]
 ----------------------------
 cd path/to/your/repo
-~/path/to/docs/repo/build_docs --doc path/to/index.asciidoc
+~/path/to/docs/repo/build_docs --doc /full/path/to/index.asciidoc
 ----------------------------
 
 Each Elastic project may need its own documentation book build command.