Asked and answered
Questions
If something is not here, it is probably because there is no honest answer to it yet.
Using it
- Who actually writes the story?
- You do, between you. At every chapter somebody says what happens next, either by typing it or by picking one of three suggestions Taleium offers, and it writes that into prose. It never picks the suggestion for you and it never ends the story on its own.
- Does my child need their own account?
- No, and there is no way to make one. Taleium is built for a parent and a child sitting at the same screen, on the same account. There are no child profiles, no logins for children and no messaging of any kind.
- How long does a chapter take?
- A few seconds. Long enough to read out the idea you just typed, and short enough that a six year old does not wander off.
- What do the age ranges change?
- How long a chapter is and how it is written. Ages 3-5 get short chapters in simple sentences with things to join in with. Ages 6-8 get full scenes with dialogue. Ages 9-12 get longer chapters with subplots and characters who change. The range is set when you start a story and stays with it.
- Can we read the story out loud?
- Every chapter has a read aloud button with four speeds. It uses the voice built into your browser, so nothing is downloaded and nothing is sent anywhere.
- Can we keep the same characters across stories?
- On Premium, yes. Make a character once, say what they look like and what they are like, and they can be in any story you write. They are drawn once and turn up looking the same every time.
Safety and privacy
- Is it safe for children?
- Every chapter is written to the age range of the story, there is nothing on the site written by strangers, and there is no way for anybody to contact your family through it. The stories other families publish are the only thing on the site Taleium did not write, and those are stories rather than comments.
- Is our story private?
- Private is the default and nothing leaves it unless you change that. You can hand out a link that works without an account, which is what most families do for grandparents, or publish a story to Browse where anybody can read it. Both are one setting on the story and both can be undone.
- Do you use our stories to train anything?
- No. Your stories are yours. They are not used to train a model, they are not sold, and nobody reads them unless you publish them.
Money
- What is free?
- One story with 3 chapters, and no card asked for. Reading, read aloud, sharing and publishing are all included, and nothing you write is ever taken away from you.
- What does Premium cost?
- £4.99 a month. It lifts the story and chapter limits and adds genres, a cast of characters you can reuse, and a printable book.
- What happens to my stories if I cancel?
- They stay. You keep reading them, sharing them and reading them aloud. What stops is writing new chapters beyond the free limits and the Premium extras. Nothing is deleted.
- How do I cancel?
- From your account page, in two clicks, through Stripe's own billing page. There is no form to fill in and nobody to email.