Introducing: Inklify

When large language models first hit the attention of the public I distinctly remember saying to my wife, "one day you will be able to open an app, submit a prompt, and then a few days later an entire novel will be shipped to your front door." When I said this, I had no intention of building that app. However, that is exactly what I have done over the past 6 months. Without further ado: Inklify.

Inklify is a web app that you run locally on localhost:3000 following some simple setup instructions described in the documentation, the GitHub readme, and further down this blog post. The setup is quite streamlined, after cloning the git repository you run a setup command that asks a few questions about AI model connections to providers such as Llama, Grok, or ChatGPT. At that point you open the app and you are ready to begin creating books. This video highlights the key features of the app.

My goal with this app was to easily allow you to use AI as much or as little as you want throughout the processes. You can, on one end, simply give a prompt and ask for the entire chapter by chapter outline and text of the book to be written by AI. On the other end, you can craft a detailed outline yourself, write as much of it as you want, and ask AI to do any of the parts you want help with. You can define reference material and describe to the AI how to handle that reference material and when to use it. You can edit the existing written parts, generate an audio book, track costs, and specify how to pronounce certain words.

Once the book is complete you can download a Microsoft Word file formatted for Lulu, KDP, and other online printers. In addition, you can download an mp3 audio book. A large part of the last 6 months of my life, summarized in a few short paragraphs. It feels like more ought to be said. However, I will keep it short, and highly suggest you give it a try yourself.