Everyone brings something for the baby. Bring something for her: a short novel where she is the heroine, with a narrated audiobook she can listen to one-handed in the middle of the night.
In the weeks after a birth, the presents pile up: sleepsuits, soft toys, more muslins than anyone could use. The new mum often gets flowers and a card that is really about the baby.
A Novellum book is about her. Tell us who she was before the baby (the job, the sense of humour, the thing she was brilliant at), how she is getting on, and the little details of her new life. Pick up to two genres (comedy and a gentle fantasy are lovely for tired evenings) and we write a novel with her as the heroine.
Reading needs two hands; listening does not. Add the narrated audiobook to the Short novel for $7.99 in total and she can play it during feeds, on a walk with the pram or when she finally gets a bath. It arrives by email on the day you choose, with your message.
This is how one of our books begins. The brief: Ellie Wakefield, 32, a new mum in Leeds who has not slept properly in six weeks and was, before the baby, a theatre stage manager who could fix any crisis with gaffer tape, finds that the old wardrobe in the nursery opens at 3am onto a sleepy kingdom where nobody can sleep either (fantasy and comedy). The hero is invented.
The nursery smelled of boiled milk and lavender sleep spray that did not seem to work. Ellie sat on the rocking chair with a cuticle-strewn hand on Jacob's back. Behind them, the wardrobe stood: old pine with a knob shaped like a brass button, the thing she had inherited from her mother and used as a changing station, storage for hand-me-down sleepsuits, and, on afternoons when she still remembered being other things, a prop closet. Before Jacob she had been a stage manager who could fix an exploding set, a diva crisis, or a cueing error with a strip of gaffer tape and a sentence that made everyone do the sensible thing. She had called herself the backstage brawn of Leeds theater, and you could not convince her that the world outside would not sometimes need taping, cueing, and bossing.
The wardrobe door moved. It opened as if someone had spit into a palm and tugged the hinge. Ellie blinked. Jacob stirred and let out a curious little squeak that was already a question. The gap in the wardrobe was not dark pine and folded onesies. It was a blue mist patterned with stars like the liner of a sleeping bag. From it came a breath of cold night that smelled not of the outdoors but of concertinaed grass and sugar.
From page one, its second and third paragraphs (the first is left out here). 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.
New parents rarely have two free hands. The narrated audiobook plays on any phone, so she can listen during feeds or on a walk.
Yes, by first name. The book will be gentle with them. Only include details the parents would be happy to see in print.
No. It is a novel with her as the heroine. The new baby can be part of it, but the story is hers.
Any day you choose. Many friends send it a few weeks in, when the first rush of visitors and flowers has stopped.
The Short is about 30,000 words. The audiobook of a Short runs for a few hours, ideal in short bursts.
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.