TL;DR: I take people’s Masters/PhD theses and turn them into readable, non-academic books using a mix of AI + a LOT of human steering. 3–5 days turnaround. $499. I’ve done 2 so far and the results were way better than I expected.
Why I Built This
I finished my own degree and realised something depressing: almost nobody ever reads these theses we spend YEARS writing. They just sit in university repositories, gathering digital dust.
Most Master’s and PhD grads I know want to share their work, but:
academic writing is… well, academic
rewriting it is exhausting
ghostwriters cost more than a used car
AI by itself gives you garbage unless you babysit it for hours
There’s this weird gap between “I wrote 60k words” and “I have a book people can read.”
So I tried to fill that gap.
What I Built
It’s called Convert My Research.
The workflow is basically:
You upload your thesis
I read enough to understand the argument
AI does a first-pass rewrite (removes citations, simplifies, restructures)
I poke it, redo things, steer tone, fix oversimplifications, re-run sections
Repeat until it stops sounding like a robot
You get a clean Word doc + a “what changed and why” report + a small guide for Amazon KDP
It takes me ~18–24 hours of actual work across a few days. I charge $499 because anything less and I’d be losing money, and anything more would feel gross.
What’s Happened So Far
I’ve done only two conversions, but both were fascinating:
1. A Biochemistry Master’s
Original: 22,963 academic words
Output: ~18k “my family can finally understand what I did” words
Their feedback literally made me smile
2. A PhD in English/Literature
The original was very… theory-heavy
The converted version reads like a narrative nonfiction book
An indie press is already looking at it (!!)
Big Realisation
The hardest part isn’t jargon. It’s finding the story buried under the academic structure.
Most people’s research is actually interesting — it’s just trapped inside Methodology Prison.
Things This Is Not
Just so there’s no confusion:
It won’t magically make you a bestseller
It’s not a substitute for a formal book editor
It requires being OK with major rewriting
It’s not for people who want to keep their work sounding academic
I can’t scale this to 500 customers — maybe 50–75 a year max
What I’m Trying to Figure Out
Do Master’s/PhD grads actually want this? Early signs say yes but sample size = 2.
How the hell do I reach people who just finished their degree?
Should I partner with universities or is that a dead end?
Can this scale without destroying the quality (probably not)?
Questions for HN
Would tech/CS/ML grads use this?
Any ideas on how to reach people outside humanities?
Anyone here wish they could turn their thesis into a book but don’t know where to start?
Am I missing something obvious that would kill this idea?
Site: (convertmyresearch.com) Samples: (convertmyresearch.com/samples)
Happy to answer anything.
gus_massa•2mo ago
I'm very skeptical, but I'm a Mathematician. No amount of editing would make my thesis readable or interesting for my family. I just lie. There are a few slightly related applied problems like image compression, so I explain one of them and then add "... or something like that". Now I'm working in applications to quantum chemistry, and I just say that we simulate molecules in the computer "... or something like that". I imagine it's possible to make a nice 5 minute video, but there is no way to write a book about those topics my family would enjoy.
> Do Master’s/PhD grads actually want this? Early signs say yes but sample size = 2.
You have N=3 testimonials in the site ... and there is one about selling a lot of copies in Amazon ...
> Should I partner with universities or is that a dead end?
I don't expect universities to be interested. Professors just want to publish papers. The university just want a press release. But if you find professor/TA that is interested and see a good result, it may spread to a few students.
> Any ideas on how to reach people outside humanities?
Perhaps there is a sweet spot in humanities and other topics, that research topic that are very close to applications in the real word. They may even talk to people! Perhaps it's possible to make a friendlier version, at least in some areas. Perhaps I have no idea about research in humanities areas.
You have a testimonial about research in Education, I think it's strange because they really love citations and quotes. Ask them if they like to keep the quotes.