Buying a book for a serious reader is a gamble. They have read it, they own it, or they have opinions about it. There is one book that cannot be on their shelf yet: the one where they are the hero.
People who love reading are easy to shop for and hard to surprise. A gift card is safe and impersonal. A bestseller risks a duplicate. A bookish candle or a tote bag is sweet, but it is not a book.
A Novellum book is a new novel written after you order, for one reader. You choose up to two genres they love (a cozy mystery with a dash of fantasy, a historical romance, a thriller) and tell us about them: their town, their job, their favorite authors, the bookshop they would live in if they could. The result is a story that has never been read by anyone, starring the person who has read everything.
Prices start at $2.99 for a Short novel, and it arrives by email on the day you pick, as an EPUB for their e-reader and a PDF. Add the narrated audiobook for the reader who has moved to listening on walks.
This is how one of our books begins. The brief: Theo Lindqvist runs a tiny secondhand bookshop in Duluth, Minnesota and has read every book on his shelves twice; a customer trades in an untitled hardback that grows a new chapter about Theo every night (mystery and fantasy). The hero is invented.
The bell over the door jingled like a tiny apology when the woman came in, and snow rattled from her shoulders onto the doormat. Theo Lindqvist looked up from the battered armchair where he cataloged new arrivals with a fountain pen. His shop smelled of paper and tea and the faintly medicinal scent that old bindings carry; it felt, in the way he liked to think of things, honest.
"Good evening," he said. He had three greetings. This one was for strangers who might spend money. The woman dropped a slim parcel onto the counter and slid off her gloves with careful fingers. She was a small person, wrapped in a coat the color of peat, and she had the kind of eyes that kept expecting a story to begin.
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.
Read page one free before you pay and judge for yourself. If the voice is not right, change the brief or the genres and try again.
Fantasy, romance, mystery, sci-fi, adventure, thriller, historical, horror, comedy and fairy tale, up to two at once.
Yes. The EPUB works on most e-readers and reading apps; the PDF opens anywhere. Kindle readers can use Send to Kindle.
Yes. Tick "This is a gift", pick the date and write your message. Cards go out at 13:00 UTC, morning in the US.
The Short is about 30,000 words, the Medium about 60,000 and the Full about 95,000, the length of a typical paperback.
Yes. It is written by AI for one reader, and it says so on its final page.
Questions? Write to us. Novellum books are written by AI, for one reader only.