Mykyta Chernenko has spent ten years working as a software engineer, but his latest project has brought him into a rather different world. Based in Norway, where he moved from Ukraine six years ago, he is building an AI platform for authors that aims to help with the practical and creative work involved in producing a book.
The platform, AI Write Book, can assist with planning, drafting, editing, formatting, illustrations and audiobooks. Although it can generate an entire manuscript, Chernenko says the more interesting use is often as a structured assistant for writers who already have their own ideas, material and voice.
“Most of the authors, especially the ones that want a higher quality book than just the standard AI output, do much more control. They provide more input. They edit what comes out of it. So at every step, we allow them to regenerate it, add additional instructions, change it. It’s an iterative process, pretty much how you do in chat, just with much better structure, and we provide additional tools.”
From software engineering to books
Chernenko is head of engineering at NKI and has spent the past five years developing his own startup projects. These have included an app for couples to improve their relationships, which was subsequently acquired, and a platform designed to help people find friends.
His interest in AI writing began with NanoReads, a project that experimented with generating commercial romance fiction. Chernenko is also an author himself, having published two technical books, including one on software engineering and another on TypeScript web development. The experience gave him an understanding of the work involved in writing and publishing before he began developing tools for other authors.
NanoReads proved that there was a market for the books it produced, but Chernenko and his team eventually decided that creating a writing platform was a more interesting direction. They began adapting their internal technology into a product that authors could use themselves, launching it at the beginning of 2026.
Initially, the platform offered relatively limited fiction generation. It has since expanded to include non-fiction, children’s books, visual books, editing, formatting and audiobook production.
Keeping the author in control
For an author who already has a manuscript, the platform can import an existing book and use it as the basis for further work. A writer planning a sequel, for example, can upload the original manuscript, provide an outline or develop one with the software, and then work through the new book chapter by chapter.
Chernenko says the system can also be given examples of an author’s writing to help it match their voice. The author can accept, reject, rewrite or regenerate the material at each stage.
“We try to match the voice. There is a specific part where you need to provide as many examples as you want, and we will then match it as well. If you provide, ‘This is my first book, this is how I write,’ then it will help you generate the outline for the next one. And you can also change it. You can provide your own.”
That distinction matters to writers who are interested in using AI without handing over the creative decisions. A novel may take years to develop, and much of the work involves keeping track of characters, structure, continuity and revisions. AI can help organise that process, but the author still has to decide what the book is trying to say and whether the resulting prose is any good.
Chernenko does not suggest that speed is the measure of literary quality. He acknowledges that some writers will continue to produce their best work entirely by hand, while others will use AI in different ways.
“Some authors will still produce the best works manually, and spend 10 years on that. And this is what’s going to sell. You need to create the best, best, best book. How you do it, there is no instruction to that.”
Editing, formatting and audio
The platform’s usefulness extends beyond generating new text. Authors can upload a completed manuscript for editorial feedback, with the software identifying areas that may need attention and offering an overall assessment. Chernenko says the team recently released a more comprehensive book editor and is working on improving the professional formatting options.
The existing formatting tools can prepare books for Amazon KDP, while cover creation, internal illustrations and visual book formats are also supported. An audiobook studio uses ElevenLabs voice technology, allowing authors to assign different voices to characters and generate an audio version of their work.
For an author with a finished manuscript, these production tools may be as relevant as the writing features. They offer another route through some of the technical tasks involved in preparing a book for publication, although the quality of the results will still need to be assessed by the author.
AI Write Book operates on a subscription model, with its lowest monthly plan priced at $20 at the time of the interview. Users can try the platform before paying, including generating an initial outline and chapter. Chernenko says it currently has around 2,000 paying customers and 30,000 non-paying users, and that the business is profitable.
Its users range from beginners and experienced authors to ghostwriters and small publishing agencies. Some are producing commercial books, while others are writing for personal reasons, such as family histories or stories for their children.
Chernenko recalls speaking to a man who wanted to write 50 books by the age of 50, recording his life so that his children might one day understand him better. Another user was creating children’s stories featuring recurring characters to read to her own child.
“I think for a lot of people, it’s more about writing them, even than somebody reading them, because they don’t plan to sell them.”
What remains human?
The use of AI in writing remains contentious, particularly among authors concerned about copyright, the training of models on existing books and the value of original creative work. Chernenko recognises that literature is different from software development, where efficiency and speed are often central to the task.
He has experienced the changes in his own profession, saying that AI now writes the code he previously produced himself. For him, the benefit is a shorter distance between an idea and a working product, but he is less certain about how AI will affect books over the longer term.
“I have no idea where book writing will be in two years or five years from now. It may be completely different from what it is today, and maybe there will not be a place for a tool like ours, or maybe this is the only way how things will be created. So it’s very hard to predict.”
He also believes that the human experience behind a work remains important to readers.
“Art is something about emotions and humanness, and this is the feeling that you want to keep. You want to keep that somebody lived through that story, that it is somebody’s life. It brings something very different to that.”
For authors, the practical question may be less about whether AI can produce a book and more about which parts of the process they want assistance with. Chernenko’s platform offers a range of possibilities, from organising an outline or reviewing a manuscript to preparing a finished book for publication. The creative decisions, and ultimately the responsibility for the work, remain with the writer.
