NovelNest

NovelNest – "Instantly transform any eBook into a dynamic entertainment experience: read, listen, and chat with characters—all in one seamless app."

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🔥 Inspiration

Books are timeless but the way we interact with them hasn’t evolved fast enough. We were inspired by the rise of BookTok, the immersive potential of AI voices, and our own struggles with limited time to sit down and read. We wanted to make books feel alive, social, and interactive like a game or a streaming service while staying true to the joy of storytelling.

We asked ourselves:

What if you could talk to your favorite book character?
What if any book could be heard, shared, or felt instantly?

This vision became NovelNest.

📖 What it does

NovelNest is a next-gen digital reading platform that blends books with AI to create entertainment.
It lets users:

  • Instantly convert EPUBs into audiobooks using ElevenLabs AI narration
  • Chat with story characters in real time using Gemini and Retrieval-Augmented Generation
  • Switch seamlessly between reading and listening
  • Create and share AI-generated trailers, quote visuals, and memes
  • Read together in synchronized Co-Listening Rooms
  • Leave Voice Annotations for a more personal and expressive reading experience

🛠️ How we built it

We built NovelNest using the following stack:

  • Frontend: React.js + EPUB.js for rendering books and UI
  • Backend: Supabase for authentication, Realtime sync, and data storage
  • AI Integration:
    • ElevenLabs for text-to-speech narration and voice responses
    • Google Gemini for summaries and AI character conversations
  • Voice Interaction: Web Speech API
  • Offline Support: IndexedDB and service workers
  • Payments: paystack for secure eBook transactions

We used serverless functions to glue all APIs together, optimize latency, and scale features.

🧗 Challenges we ran into

  • AI character chat grounding: Building realistic and relevant conversations with book characters required fine-tuning prompt engineering and retrieval context
  • Real-time sync: Making read/listen modes consistent across devices pushed us to fine-tune Supabase Realtime and debounce logic
  • Streaming voice latency: We had to buffer ElevenLabs audio with UX-friendly loading states to keep the experience fluid
  • Rendering EPUBs: Parsing complex layouts or malformed files presented rendering edge cases in EPUB.js
  • Time constraints: Wrapping so many immersive features in a limited hackathon window was a major sprint!

🏆 Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Seamless EPUB-to-AI-audio conversion
  • Live character chat with personalized AI narration
  • Interactive, social-first features like BookTok Studio and Co-Listening
  • A beautiful, accessible, mobile-friendly interface
  • A scalable and flexible architecture ready for real-world use

📚 What we learned

  • Integrating multiple AI services is powerful but requires thoughtful orchestration to feel natural
  • Supabase Realtime can create a surprisingly responsive multi-user experience
  • Accessibility and UX aren’t just nice-to-haves they’re essential for entertainment-based apps
  • Book lovers are ready for tech-driven experiences that respect and enhance the original text

🚀 What's next for NovelNest

  • Launch the MVP with selected indie authors
  • Expand voice library with multi-language narration
  • Add support for comics, academic texts, and fanfiction
  • Partner with BookTok creators and publishers
  • Improve AI memory in character chat (e.g., long-term story context)
  • Develop a mobile app (PWA + React Native hybrid)
  • Host live author Q&As and co-listening events with integrated chat and reactions

NovelNest isn’t just a bookstore. It’s a playground for readers, creators, and dreamers—and this is just chapter one.

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