WonderBooks relaunched with 2000 AI stories
WonderBooks, a digital reading platform offering 2,000 illustrated books across 12 libraries in a dozen languages, has been relaunched by Amr El Fangary. El Fangary credits artificial intelligence for enabling him to create what previously would have demanded a large studio, years of effort, and millions in funding.
El Fangary points out that the initial app struggled to expand despite robust ratings and downloads. It maintained a rating exceeding 4.5 across 976 reviews, surpassed 100,000 downloads, and attracted feedback in 11 languages over nine years. Yet it contained only 18 stories, insufficient to form a substantial library.
Rebuilding the Platform
El Fangary recognized AI’s capacity to construct an entire project, not merely assist with coding. This enabled support for app and website development, database, hosting, infrastructure, marketing, and analytics. These areas once demanded specialized expertise, which is why they previously required a team. Now, a single individual can manage all components.
El Fangary developed over 2,000 stories independently by first establishing the core of a studio with protocols for direction, camera angles, character placement, reactions, and permissible or restricted elements. Once this framework was set, including guidelines for storytelling, intended outcomes, and maintaining enjoyment, the catalog expanded accordingly.
AI functions as the execution layer in the product’s creation. El Fangary retains control over vision, editorial standards, direction, design choices, and decisions on page quality or publication rejections. AI has minimized the gap between envisioning an idea and actualizing it.
Users and Revenue Model
WonderBooks currently has readers in approximately 150 countries, despite no official launch. The largest user base spans Africa and South Asia, with consistent growth in Europe and the United States. Android accounts for nearly all activity due to its full availability on that platform.
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All 12 libraries are listed on Google Play. Four have been approved and published on Apple’s App Store, while the remaining eight await approval. The complete launch will occur after all approvals are finalized. WonderBooks generates revenue through a membership model, offering free reading up to a daily limit, with membership removing restrictions.
Users joining at launch will access a founding-member rate unavailable thereafter. El Fangary intends to continuously enhance membership features and value instead of treating it as a static offering. The principle is that nobody should be stopped from reading. One membership covers all 12 libraries rather than charging readers separately for each one.
El Fangary observes that WonderBooks’ core concept never shifted, but its buildability evolved. Advances in AI now allow construction of what once demanded a large studio, extensive time, and significant capital.
Work that would have taken a year and a full studio now takes days. If El Fangary had tried to build what exists today back then, he could not have reached even a thousandth of it, not slowly or expensively, but simply not at all.
Building the Catalogue
Most of the work went into building the foundations of a studio with rules for direction, camera angles, character placement, reactions, and what is allowed or never allowed. Those choices must match the material because a documentary subject is not framed like an action scene, and neither is framed like a family story.
