Grandparents say they want nothing. What they usually mean is that they have enough things. A novel built from their own stories is not a thing; it is theirs.
Every family has the stories: how Gran and Grandad met, the job in another country, the winter the pipes froze, the dog that ate the Christmas pudding. They get told at every gathering and written down almost never.
A Novellum book gives those stories a shape. You put the true details in the brief (names, places, the year it happened) and choose a genre. Historical fiction suits a life story; adventure or romance suits the tale of how they met. We write a novel with your grandparent as the hero. It is a story told as fiction, not a biography, and it makes a good excuse to ask them for more of the real thing.
For anyone whose eyes tire on a screen, the Short novel comes with a narrated audiobook for $7.99, read in a warm older or younger voice you choose. Or print the PDF for a copy they can hold.
This is how one of our books begins. The brief: Rosie Callaghan, 79, from Ballarat, Australia, remembers the 1966 summer she cooked for a survey expedition into the outback (historical and adventure). The hero is invented.
When the rain finally came it hit the corrugated roof like someone throwing fists. Rosie Callaghan sat on a milk crate in the doorway of the school kitchen and watched the gutters run black with red dust. The pantry was still full of potatoes and sacks of flour that smelled faintly of the town, of ovens and the endless stew of the Ballarat winters. Outside, between the bell tower and the iron fence, three men sat on the kerb with maps spread on the bonnet of a truck. Their boots were scuffed like they had been dragged through half the colony; their shirts were the pale color of hard rain. They looked like they had come from another book.
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 as the hero and write the other into the brief. The example above is a grandmother's story that ends with how she met her husband.
Choose the audiobook: they listen on a phone, tablet or computer from a link in the email. Or print the PDF and give it to them as a paper copy.
It is a novel, so it will invent scenes and conversations around the facts you give. Put the details that matter most in the brief, and read page one free to check the tone.
On the day you pick, at 13:00 UTC: early afternoon in the UK and South Africa, morning in the Americas, late evening in Australia and New Zealand, so for Australia choose the day before.
The Short novel is $2.99; with its narrated audiobook $7.99. Prices are in US dollars.
Yes. It is written by AI for one reader and says so on its final page, and the narration is a synthetic voice.
Questions? Write to us. Novellum books are written by AI, for one reader only.