By fifty, people have most of what they need and a lifetime of stories nobody has written down. Write some of them into a novel with the birthday person as the hero.
A 50th birthday usually gets a party, a speech and a gift that tries to mark the occasion: engraved glass, a weekend away, something from the year they were born. The speech is often the part people remember, because it is the part about them.
A Novellum book is a speech that runs to tens of thousands of words. Gather a few stories from family and friends: where they grew up, the job they are known for, the city they love, the thing they always say. Pick up to two genres (historical and mystery for the curious one, adventure for the traveller, comedy for the family legend) and we write a whole novel with them as the hero.
It costs from $2.99 and arrives by email on the birthday with your message. Print the PDF for a keepsake copy everyone can sign, or add the narrated audiobook for the car.
This is how one of our books begins. The brief: Fiona Gallagher, a librarian in Edinburgh, turns 50 and finds a letter from 1824 written by a woman with her own name (historical and mystery). The hero is invented.
On the morning Fiona Gallagher turned fifty the rain refused to stop long enough to be polite. It skittered down the slanted panes of the Special Collections reading room and left the air smelling of peat and iron. Fiona had been at the desk since seven, cataloguing a donation from a retired antiquarian who had hoarded other people's pasts for the better part of a century. She liked the ritual of it: book after book, pencil measuring as if she could tame time with a neat reference number. Outside, the Old Town held its breath in wet stone; inside, the books unrolled their lives.
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. Collect memories from everyone and one person writes them into the brief, up to 2,000 characters. Only name people who would be happy to appear in the story.
Yes. Tick "This is a gift", choose the date and add your message. Cards go out at 13:00 UTC, early afternoon in the UK.
Yes. Have it sent to the organiser, read page one aloud, and print the PDF as a keepsake.
The Short is about 30,000 words; the Full, about 95,000, is the length of a typical paperback and suits a milestone.
From $2.99 for a Short novel to $6.99 for a Full. Prices are in US dollars and your card converts them.
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.