We make personalised storybooks. That is the short version. The longer version involves artificial intelligence, a genuine love of children's literature, and the firmly held belief that a bedtime story with your child's name in it is not going to bring down civilisation. But we should probably explain properly.
What we actually do
CuentosIA creates one-off, personalised stories using AI-generated text and illustrations. You tell us about the person the story is for -- their name, their interests, maybe a pet or a favourite colour -- and we build a complete storybook around them. It arrives as a PDF you can read on screen, or as a printed book you can hold in your hands. Every single one is different.
For families
Picture this: Oliver is five. He is about to start reception and he is, to put it mildly, nervous. He has a scruffy terrier called Pudding who he considers his best friend. Now imagine handing Oliver a storybook where he and Pudding go on an adventure together, face something a bit scary, and come out the other side feeling braver. That is what we do.
According to Book Trust, one in four children in the UK does not own a single book. We are not claiming to fix that -- it is a systemic problem that needs systemic solutions -- but we do think a child is more likely to fall in love with reading when the story feels like it was written just for them. Personalisation is not a gimmick. For a reluctant reader, it can be the thing that makes them turn the page.
For schools
Teachers already know that engagement is half the battle. Our educational stories are built around curriculum themes -- think Key Stage 1 science topics, PSHE themes like kindness and resilience, or Key Stage 2 history adventures where pupils find themselves in the middle of events they are studying. Each story weaves in age-appropriate learning objectives without reading like a textbook. Because nothing kills a child's enthusiasm faster than a story that feels like homework in disguise.
For grown-ups
Not everything we make is for children. We also create stories for adults -- romantic, humorous, reflective, or wonderfully odd. A first date at a pub in Brighton. A friendship that started with a borrowed umbrella on a rainy Tuesday. A retirement gift for someone who spent thirty years doing a job they secretly loved. These are not literary novels. They are personal, specific, and often surprisingly moving. We have had more than a few customers tell us they cried, which we choose to interpret as a compliment.
What we don't do (and never will)
We are not a replacement for authors. We are not a replacement for illustrators. We have no interest in competing with the people who spend years mastering their craft and producing the books that line our own shelves at home.
We do not produce generic content and slap a name on the cover. We do not scrape other people's work. We do not pretend that what we make is the same as a book written by a human being who poured their experience, talent, and thousands of hours into it. It is not the same, and we would never claim otherwise.
What we make occupies a different space entirely. A personalised story about your child and their dog is not taking a sale away from Julia Donaldson. It is filling a gap that traditional publishing -- for perfectly understandable economic reasons -- cannot fill. No publisher is going to print a single copy of a book about Oliver and Pudding starting school. We can.
Where AI fits in
AI is the engine, not the point. We use large language models to generate story text and image generation models to create illustrations. We are transparent about this because we think you deserve to know exactly what you are getting.
The technology lets us do something that would otherwise be impossible: create a unique, illustrated storybook for one specific person, affordably, and quickly. Without AI, this would require commissioning a writer and an illustrator for every single order, which would make each book cost hundreds of pounds. We think there is room in the world for both approaches.
We are also honest about the limitations. AI-generated text can occasionally be clunky. AI-generated images sometimes produce hands with too many fingers. We review, we refine, and we keep improving -- but we will never tell you this is indistinguishable from human-made work. It is a different thing, made possible by different tools, serving a different purpose.
Buy from real authors and illustrators
We mean this sincerely: go and buy books. Buy them from Waterstones. Buy them from Foyles. Buy them from your local independent bookshop that is somehow still hanging on despite everything. Buy them directly from authors at festivals and signings. Subscribe to a children's book box. Give books as gifts instead of plastic things that end up in a landfill.
The publishing industry is full of extraordinarily talented people who deserve to make a living from their work. Supporting them is not in tension with what we do -- in fact, we think a child who gets excited about a personalised story is a child who is more likely to ask for another book, and then another, and then another. We want more readers in the world, full stop.
Over to you
If you have read this far, thank you -- genuinely. We know that "company explains its values" is not exactly riveting content, and yet here you are. If you have questions, thoughts, or strongly worded opinions about any of this, we would love to hear them. We are a small team, we read everything, and we are not above changing our minds when someone makes a good point.
You can reach us at hello@cuentosia.com. We promise a human will reply.
