46% of Americans failed to read a single book last year.

Reasons range from busyness, overstimulation, neurodiversity, or a simple lack of interest in books.

As a result, bookstores are suffering, authors are struggling, and the cultural importance of reading is vanishing.

Hypnovels is an ambitious new book format created specifically for this fickle, attention-challenged audience (last new formats were audiobooks in 1932 and ebooks in 1971) .

By combining multiple forms of AI, Hypnovels allows any author to create engaging animations directly from their writing, in a format developed not to emulate films but to enhance the words themselves.

“You guys are starting a war. But… Can I show it to my boss?” – PublishingExecutive

Big publishers are afraid of the format because this can compromise their audiobook revenue (and their current contracts don’t contemplate this kind of expression, so they would have to renegotiate everything). Meanwhile, audiobook platforms are afraid of this because actors are threatening to retaliate if they accept AI voices. So we decided to start with focusing on the promotional aspects, and on indie writers, who are responsible for the majority of the titles published in America but are left alone with zero marketing skills or budget. From there, we’ll expand, always prioritizing readers and artists.

TikTok, Instagram and YouTube are the most popular platforms on which to promote books nowadays. Authors like Colleen Hoover and John Green do a great job showing themselves on camera and interacting directly with their audience, but many authors are introverts who do not want that kind of personal exposure. Yet they need ways to keep their audience engaged in social media. Now they can use their own words.

A major rule in literature: let readers form their own images. That rule influences book covers, illustrations… everything related to the story. Developing a visual language that was replicable and didn’t steal that opportunity from readers was very important for us. So our goal was to create a format that enhanced the words in a new way for books, instead of just illustrating the paragraphs like a poorly directed movie.

It started with a writer. A former programmer turned advertising creative with a secret life as a novelist came up with the idea after using generative AI to create promotional materials for his own novel. As an agency owner and creative, he was intrigued by the level of production value that AI could provide for little to no budget, as long as there was a strong system in place. This led him on a journey to create a foolproof GenAI platform available to authors, publishers, and booksellers to help promote their own titles. And potentially, in the future, it could become an entirely new digital format—a way to consume entire books.

“Hypnovels makes books visual, without ever feeding the audience the exact images they should form in their heads” – Darri Stephens, M.Ed Harvard + Stanford, Education Researcher

Hypnovels leverages multiple forms of generative AI to transform traditional book content into immersive animated experiences created to enhance the written word instead of trying to emulate movies.

It is the first new book format since audiobooks (1931) and ebooks (1971).

November 2022: First GenAI book trailer is produced, the beginning of the development of the visual language behind Hypnovels

Jun 2023: First proof of concept with a full chapter rendered in this format introduced at the OpenAI Terrace at Cannes

Jul 2023: Start of the development phase of the universal tool

Jan 2024: Alpha launch of Hypnovels begins

Mar 2024: Exclusive deal with BookTrib guarantees distribution for authors’ Hypnovels

April 2024: Beta launch of Hypnovels platform at hypnovels.com, including more than 20 sample chapters from classic books such as Dracula, Moby-Dick and Jane Eyre

April 2024: Collaborations with authors, publishers, and educators commence

May 2024: Release of Moby-Dick as the world’s first full Hypnovel

July 2024: Launch of the paid service

August 2024: Inclusion of Audio

September: Begins the development of the app for full books

The tool that generates Hypnovels is fully functional and has been used by authors from all over the country.

The system chains a series of AI tools into a simple interface made for tech-anxious authors.

First step is turning the chapter into voice, for which we use Eleven Labs’ API.

Next, we calculate duration and locate keyframes.

Through the GPT4 API, we interpret the paragraphs and generate prompts that will be used on Stable Diffusion to generate the animation following the keyframes map and predesigned prompt collections we call styles.

Finally, the system assembles them together, adding the intro sequence, post-production effects, and color adjustments, and sends an email to the user to alert them the film is ready.

The architecture was designed to allow us to switch specific technologies at any point without interrupting the service.

Publishing is an important industry that desperately needs reinvention.

In the past, it had the press, then audiobooks, then ebooks… since then, nothing. With the advent of generative AI and a good combination of technical skills, understanding of storytelling, and design, we believe we have created the next big format.

One that can reignite interest in reading and bring back reluctant readers of all ages.

It started a year ago with the proof of concept for a book about AI, turned into a universal tool for indie writers, and will now start to build its path toward changing reading for everyone.

It may face obstacles. Opposition. Technical difficulties. But we are confident. Because we already have the most important element: readers love this.