Mum has a drawer full of candles and bath sets she is too polite to mention. This year, give her a book where she is the heroine, built from the family's stories about her.
Every family has a mum who runs Christmas: the lists, the timings, the person who notices when someone has gone quiet. She is also the hardest person to buy for, because she has been quietly buying for everyone else for decades.
A Novellum book turns what you know about her into a novel with her as the heroine. Gather a few details from the family: where she grew up, the job she did, the thing she always says, the place she loves. Pick up to two genres (a cosy mystery and a historical story suit many mums) and we write the whole book around her.
It costs from $2.99, arrives by email on Christmas morning with your message, and the narrated audiobook means she can listen while the sprouts are on. Print the PDF and the whole family can sign the first page.
This is how one of our books begins. The brief: Jean Fairley, 67, a retired primary school headteacher in Whitby who runs the church Christmas fair, finds a 1956 Christmas card hidden in a donated book, addressed to a girl from her own street, and sets out to deliver it before Christmas Day (mystery and historical). The hero is invented.
The church hall smelled like boiled sweets and beeswax. Jean Fairley stood at the folding table between crates of knitted hats and a mountain of mismatched cups and saucers, her cardigan sleeves rolled to the elbow and a pencil tucked behind her ear. Outside, the harbour wind had a bite that promised sleet, but here under the bunting and the soft yellow lights it felt as if someone had put the whole of Whitby into a teapot and set it to warm. She said hello to Mrs. Pritchard, who was arranging a display of embroidered tea towels, and to Tom Dacre, who was testing the strength of the raffle tickets as if they might be paper bridges. Everyone in the town knew Jean and expected from her the same calm authority with which she had run St. Augustine's Primary for three decades. She expected the same from herself.
Her hands were sorting through a box of books and hymnals when a corner of paper caught on the spine of a battered copy of The Railway Children. Jean eased the book open. A pale rectangle slid free and floated into her palm like a confession. It was a Christmas card, its edges foxed, the ink a weary blue. On the front a choir of robins had been stamped in gilt. Inside, in a careful hand, the message read: To Ellen Harper, 12 Westgate, wishing you a merry Christmas 1956. From your friend, Margaret.
A real opening Novellum wrote for an example brief, quoted unedited. Your book starts from your brief, and you read its page one free before you pay.
| Short novel, about 30,000 words | $2.99 |
| Short novel with its narrated audiobook | $7.99 |
| Medium novel, about 60,000 words | $4.99 |
| Full novel, about 95,000 words | $6.99 |
| Bundle: three Medium books, one now and two codes to give later | $13.99 |
Prices in US dollars, the same everywhere. You pay only after you have read page one.
Cards go out at 13:00 UTC, which is 1pm in the UK, between the presents and the dinner. If you want it there first thing, schedule it for Christmas Eve.
Yes. Collect memories from everyone and one person puts them into the brief, up to 2,000 characters. Only name people who would be happy to appear in the book.
Print the PDF at a local print shop, or add the audiobook and play it on a speaker. The EPUB works on any e-reader, including a Kindle.
Yes. Novellum books for gifts are warm and clean unless you ask for something else, and you read page one free before paying.
The Short is about 30,000 words, an afternoon or two. The Full, about 95,000 words, is the length of a typical paperback.
Yes. It is written by AI for one reader and says so on its final page.
Questions? Write to us. Novellum books are written by AI, for one reader only.