Book By Anyone Alternatives: Gift Ideas Sorted by What You Wanted From It
Book By Anyone is a joke book with someone's name on the cover. If that is close to the gift but not quite it, the right alternative depends on which part you liked: the laugh, the face, the story, or the fact that it writes itself.
Last reviewed . Written by our editorial team from our own product knowledge and from how Book By Anyone and the other services mentioned describe themselves publicly. We have not ordered from any of them for this piece. We make myComics, one of the options listed, so weigh our view accordingly.
By the myComics.ai Editorial Team9 min read
Gift guide · 7 alternatives · Editorial disclosure
Quick answer
- The best Book By Anyone alternative depends on which part of it you liked: the laugh, seeing their face, telling their story, or not having to write anything.
- For a real story with the person recognizably drawn in it, a personalized comic you make yourself is the closest swap. You steer the plot and rewrite any line before printing.
- For sentiment rather than satire, a reasons book or a letter fits better. For a child, a personalized picture book built for reading aloud does. For the person's own voice, a memoir service that collects their answers over months does.
- If the laugh was the whole point and speed matters most, Book By Anyone may still be the right gift. Most alternatives ask for more of your time or more lead time.
Most people who search for an alternative to Book By Anyone are not unhappy with it. They saw one on a friend’s shelf, laughed, and thought of someone. Then something stopped them. Maybe the recipient is not a person who enjoys being roasted in print. Maybe the gift needs to say something true about them, and a generated joke book does not. Maybe it is for a couple, or a child, or a grandmother, and the format suddenly looks wrong.
So this is not a list of clones. It is a list sorted by what you were actually after when the idea appealed to you. We make myComics.ai, which is one of the options below, and we have tried to be honest about when it is the wrong pick. We have not ordered from any of the services mentioned for this piece; what we say about them comes from how they describe themselves. If you want the head to head between Book By Anyone and a comic specifically, that lives in Book By Anyone vs a personalized comic.
What was it about Book By Anyone that appealed?
As Book By Anyone presents itself, you choose a format, answer some questions about a person, and AI writes a long, mostly satirical book with that person named as the author and their photo on the cover. The joke is that your brother has apparently written a confident book about his own greatness. That is four separate things packaged as one gift:
- The laugh. A gag that lands when the wrapping comes off.
- The face and the name. The person is visibly the star.
- A story about them. Or at least the shape of one.
- No effort. A few minutes of answers and the book writes itself.
Every alternative below keeps some of these and gives up others. Decide which one you care about most and the list gets short quickly.
| If what you wanted was | Look at | What you give up |
|---|---|---|
| Their real story, with their face | A personalized comic you make yourself | An evening of your time |
| Sentiment, not satire | A reasons book or a letter | The laugh, mostly |
| Something for a child | A personalized picture book | Anything for grown ups |
| Their own voice | A memoir service | Speed, by months |
| Their real memories | A photo book | The story and the joke |
| Something made by hand | A commissioned illustration | Budget and lead time |
| Just the laugh, faster | A gag gift such as a spoof front page | Depth |
What is the best Book By Anyone alternative for telling their real story?
Best when: you wanted the person to star in a book, but in their real story rather than a generated one.
This is the closest swap, and the one we know best. With a comic tool like myComics you upload three to eight photos of each person, and it builds a reusable comic character from them, meant to keep the same face across panels while the pose and the scene change. You give the story a premise, one sentence or a full plot, and it unfolds through choices you make as you go. Every speech bubble and caption can be rewritten, and a page can be regenerated with an instruction if it misses. A full book is a cover, 20 story pages and a back cover.
What it keeps from Book By Anyone: the person as the star, and the laugh if you want one. A comic can be every bit as teasing as a gag book. What changes is that the jokes are the ones your family actually tells. A generated book can know that your aunt likes travel. It cannot know that she once chased a suitcase down a hill in Lisbon while the tram left without her, and that this is now the story at every family lunch.
What it costs: an evening, and good photos. The likeness is stylized, closer to what a caricature artist captures than to a portrait photo, and it depends on the photos you give it; there is a walkthrough in how to turn your photos into a comic. And it is short. Twenty pages you read in one sitting is a different object from a thick book for the shelf.
The style is part of the gift. Cartoon is warm and safe for all ages, Sitcom suits family stories, Detective Noir is funny when the subject is deadpan, and Superhero turns an ordinary retirement into an epic. There are 16 styles in the studio. Pick the one that fits the person rather than your own taste. If the recipient is a grown up and you are worried a comic reads as childish, we wrote about that in personalized comics for adults.
What should you give instead if you want something sincere, not satirical?
Best when: the gift is meant to be sincere, and a satirical book felt like it changed the subject.
Reasons books, where each page completes a line such as “I love you because”, are built for couples and close friends. You write the lines, and the book collects them, often with a cartoon avatar of the two of you. LoveBook is the best known of these; our LoveBook comparison covers how that format differs from a comic.
If the reason Book By Anyone felt wrong was that you wanted to say something rather than make someone laugh, it is worth asking whether you need a product at all. A handwritten letter costs almost nothing, needs no lead time, and is often the thing people keep longest.
What you give up: the joke, and the sense of a finished object. A reasons book is only as good as the lines you write, which suits people who enjoy writing and frustrates people who do not.
What is a better personalized book for a child?
Best when: the recipient is under ten.
Book By Anyone is aimed at adults, and a gag book about a seven year old’s imaginary memoir does not quite work. Personalized children’s books are a separate category, designed for reading aloud, with a fixed story the child’s name and an illustrated character are woven into. Wonderbly is one of the established names; our Wonderbly comparison explains where those books are the better choice and where a comic starring the child’s real face fits instead.
What you give up: anything personal beyond the name and a look picked from a menu. For a young child that rarely matters. The joy is hearing their name in the story.
What is a better gift for a parent or grandparent who has stories to tell?
Best when: the recipient is a parent or grandparent, and what you really want is their voice.
Services such as StoryWorth, as they describe themselves, send the recipient a question at regular intervals over a long period, collect the written answers, and bind them into a book at the end. It is almost the inverse of Book By Anyone. Instead of someone else inventing a book about the person, the person writes their own, one answer at a time.
What you give up: speed, and control. The book exists only if the recipient keeps answering, and it arrives long after the occasion. For a family that wants to keep a grandparent’s stories, that is a fair trade. For a fortieth birthday next Saturday, it is the wrong tool.
When is a photo book a better gift than a personalized book?
Best when: the memories are the gift, and nobody needs to be drawn or teased.
Real photos in order, a few captions, printed and bound. A photo book asks you to choose rather than to write, which many people find easier, and it is the safest choice for most grandparents. It works well for groups too, because nobody has to be a main character.
What you give up: the story and the joke. A photo book shows what happened. It does not tell it.
When is a commissioned illustration worth it instead?
Best when: the occasion is big enough to justify the budget, and you want something made by a person.
A human illustrator or caricature artist drawing one scene that matters, a wedding, a retirement, the family on its favourite beach, brings a kind of judgment and warmth that no template or tool does. Many artists take commissions online from a few reference photos.
What you give up: time and money, and length. A commission is usually one image, not a book, and good artists often have a queue. Ask about lead time before anything else.
What is a quicker gag gift if the laugh was the whole point?
Best when: the laugh really was the whole point, and you mostly wanted something faster or smaller.
A spoof newspaper front page, a fake magazine cover, a custom award or a mock trading card all deliver the same joke as a satirical book, about the person, at their expense, in an afternoon. They are lighter and cheaper to get wrong. If the recipient loves being the butt of the joke and the gift will be passed around a crowded room, these work.
What you give up: the sense of a real object to keep. These are usually framed, laughed at, and forgotten in a drawer.
When is Book By Anyone still the right gift?
Worth saying, because a list of alternatives that never points back at the original is not much of a guide.
If the recipient enjoys being teased, the gift is for a milestone where the whole room will pass it around, and you have little time and no appetite for writing, Book By Anyone does exactly that. A long, ridiculous book on the shelf is a different object from a twenty page comic, and some people would rather be the fake author of a silly book than the hero of a real one. You probably already know which kind of person you are buying for.
How do you choose in five minutes?
Say the gift out loud in one sentence.
If the sentence is “something to make everyone laugh at his fiftieth”, you want a gag book or a gag gift. If it is “the trip where everything went wrong” or “how she ran the family bakery for thirty years”, you have a premise, and a premise suits a comic. If it is “how much she means to me”, write the letter, or pick a reasons book. If the sentence is about a child, look at picture books. If it is about keeping someone’s stories, look at a memoir service.
Then check what you have. A comic needs three to eight good photos of each person; open your camera roll before you decide. A memoir service needs months. A commission needs an artist with space in their queue. A printed anything needs delivery time, so work backwards from the date and leave room. If the date is close, a comic can be given as a PDF on the day and as a book when it arrives.
If you are leaning towards the comic, the Book By Anyone alternative page has the feature by feature view, and occasion pages such as birthday comics and anniversary comics show what finished books look like. For the wider picture of what a personalized comic book can be, start there.
The short version: Book By Anyone makes a joke about someone. Pick the alternative that makes whatever your one sentence was about.
