Spines, a company that uses AI to edit, design and lay out books for first-time authors, raised $64 million as its yearly revenue hit $50 million.
A company that turns a finished manuscript into a published book in about two weeks has just raised $64 million. Spines, based in Herzliya, Israel, uses AI agents to edit and proofread the text, design the cover and format the pages. The money is $29 million in equity and $35 million in debt.
An author uploads a manuscript. Software agents, meaning AI programs that carry out tasks, handle the editing, the cover and the layout. Spines then distributes the book through sellers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble in digital, audio and print formats. Print copies are made only when someone orders one, so the company holds no stock.
Audiobooks can use a library of voices, or the author's own voice can be sampled to train an AI model to read the book aloud.
The company says a typical package costs $5,000 to $7,000. CEO Yehuda Niv says first-time authors who approach established publishing houses might instead be handed a bill of $10,000 to $150,000. Authors who want more polish can pay extra for a human editor.
Spines does not accept books written by AI and says it uses tools built to detect them.
Spines currently serves the English-speaking market. It can translate English books into Spanish, Italian, French, German, Portuguese, Polish and Hebrew. The AI does the first pass, and professionals who speak the target language natively review it. The company plans to offer 20 languages over the next six months.
The company's valuation for this round has not been disclosed. Globes reports it is understood to be below $1 billion. Sales results are also worth weighing. Niv says 99% of the 2.5 to 3 million books published each year in the US do not succeed in sales. Spines does not pick books for commercial promise. It says about 100 of its authors have sold several thousand copies each.
For someone with a book in them, the pitch is a faster, cheaper path to print. It is not a promise that the book will sell.
AI is making self-publishing faster and cheaper, but a $5,000 to $7,000 package buys a finished book, not readers.
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