The first wedding anniversary is traditionally paper. The best paper gift is a story. Here is a whole novel about the two of you, written after you order it, delivered on the day.
The anniversary list most of us inherited is old: Emily Post's 1922 book of etiquette already gave paper for the first year, and paper is still the first-year gift on most US and UK lists. Paper is meant to stand for something new and still being written, which is a fair description of a first year of marriage.
A Novellum book takes that literally. You give us your names, the genres you both enjoy and a few lines about your story: where you met, the honeymoon, the joke that only makes sense to you two. We write a novel with you as the heroes. It arrives as an e-book and a PDF, so if you want it on actual paper, print the PDF, bind it at a copy shop, and you have a paper gift in the traditional sense too.
It is also the rare anniversary present that is not a guess. It is built from your own year together, so it cannot be the wrong size, colour or scent.
This is how one of our books begins. The brief: Ellie and Sam, married a year ago in Bath, find their honeymoon map of Lisbon marked with crosses neither of them drew (romance and adventure). The hero is invented.
Ellie unfolded the map on the kitchen table as if it might spring to life and start pointing the way. The paper smelled faintly of lemon and old street vendors, the creases soft from a dozen nights in a drawer. She had found it in the back pocket of the jeans she wore to bed last week, the jeans she had ignored for months because they never quite fit the same after the wedding. The map itself was the one they had bought in Lisbon at the little shop by the river when they argued about whether to keep wandering or commit to a tiny pastel hotel. Sam had laughed and said she was being sentimental. They had pinned it above the sink for a while and then life had slipped its small betrayals in and the pins came down.
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.
Yes. Name one of you as the hero and write the other into the brief, as Ellie and Sam are in the example above. The story will follow the two of you.
The PDF prints well at home or at a copy shop, and many print-on-demand shops will bind a PDF. We do not ship printed copies ourselves.
Yes. Pick the date and the book and your message arrive that day, early afternoon in the UK and South Africa.
The Short novel is $2.99, and $7.99 with a narrated audiobook you could listen to together. Prices are in US dollars; your card converts them.
Yes. It is written by AI for the two of you only, and says so on its final page.
Tick "This is a gift" at checkout and it is held until the date you pick. You get an email when it is ready; your partner gets nothing until the day.
Questions? Write to us. Novellum books are written by AI, for one reader only.