A New Avenue forCreativity & Connection

Custom short books, so you can read anything you can imagine.

User Stories

Birthday Gift

“It’s delightful! It was a great read and my daughter was so thrilled by the whole thing. The AI actually did a really good job of coming up with a coherent plot, characters and elements.”

Personal Exploration

“Unbearably cool. It’s a singularity for me, I’ve never had this experience before. I didn’t write a book, but I know a machine did. It’s the first ‘more than a machine’ experience that I’ve had.”

Niche Hobby

“I’ve never read anything this detailed about a greenhouse. I think it’s hitting the tone very well actually. Great job!”

Reader enjoying their personalized novella
Reading Saints in the Wilderness Reading Closer Still Displaying The Shadow Between Us Reading The Book of Shadows

Our Library of Custom Creations

Explore 50+ unique books from our Pilot Program, each one imagined by a real person and brought to life by Novella1. Preview the first few pages of any story that catches your eye. Up through The Song of Light, books were generated with a 25-step hierarchical LLM workflow that emphasized story planning; after that, books were generated with a more agentic workflow that included improvising and revision. Cover images, blurbs, and page design were also automated. No book text was edited by hand.

How It Works

1

Tell Us Your Story Idea

Describe the plot and vibe that you have in mind, and your personal inspiration.

2

Our AI Crafts Your Novella

We'll write your story at the length you ask for. Choose your own book cover before it's shipped.

3

Receive Your Printed Book

Your professionally bound novella is here! Finish it in one sitting and share it with friends and family.

Innovation with Integrity

Will has dedicated his career to understanding what makes writing work—from his PhD in Rhetoric, to his time as a writing professor at Princeton. For more than a year, Will has been channeling this expertise into developing a new way to create stories (co-developed with Smitty Penman). The result is long-form AI storytelling that’s both enjoyable and principled.

Our technology creates your stories from the ground up, using no pre-existing literature. This means your story is truly unique—free from copyright concerns and faithful to your creative vision.

Private

Story ideas can be very personal. We keep your data to ourselves, and we pay our LLM partners so that they don’t hold onto anything you submit

Honest

We are upfront throughout the process about using AI

Respectful

We do not use any human-written literature, or reference any human authors. We also use AI versions that are environmentally friendly in their electricity usage.

Meaningful

All published stories are initiated by humans, for humans to enjoy. We’re not trying to make art for art’s sake, or flood the world with stories that no one asked for.

Forward-thinking

We think this will be big, and we want to bring you along. You keep the rights to your story world.

Find Out More

Novella1 as a startup has shut down now. Thanks to everyone who participated! To learn more about the prompt engineering work behind it and to see what Will has been up to, visit Will’s personal website:

Will’s personal website

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