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Scriptbakery taught an AI to analyze manuscripts and the emotions of a potential reader — Founder Interview

Updated: 18 hours ago

This story was migrated from our old blog, originally published on November 4th, 2020.

What Is This About?

Scriptbakery taught an AI to analyze book manuscripts and predict the emotional responses of potential readers. The startup helps publishers and authors understand how their writing lands emotionally — using natural language processing to map narrative arcs, tension, and reader engagement.

Executive Summary

  • This story was migrated from our old blog, originally published on November 4th, 2020.

  • This blog post first appeared first on old medium publication (https://medium.

  • This interview is in media partnership with the CONTENTshif accelerator program (https://www.

  • We talk to Patrick Kaiser (https://www.

  • Patrick got his job as COO because he has a black belt in Kungfu.

Scriptbakery taught an AI to analyze manuscripts and the emotions of a potential reader — Founder Interview Startuprad.io brings you independent coverage of the key developments shaping the startup and venture capital landscape across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

This story was migrated from our old blog, originally published on November 4th, 2020.


New Blog


This blog post first appeared first on old medium publication (https://medium.com/startuprad-io), and was moved to this blog with the relaunch of our website in summer 2024.


Scriptbakery taught an AI to analyze manuscripts and the emotions of a potential reader

98% of the manuscripts sent to publishing houses are not read right now.Patrick Kaiser, COO Scriptbakery

Media Partnership

This interview is in media partnership with the CONTENTshif accelerator program (https://www.contentshift.de/en/accelerator/programme/for-startups/), which we follow since its inception. CONTENTshift is the accelerator program of the German Book Publishers and Printers Association. Below you will find more interviews from past batches. We used to record the interviews directly at Frankfurt Book Fair, but since it is canceled this year due to Corona, we resorted to remote only interviews. At the time of the recording, we did not know who won the final award. The winner of this year’s batch is SciFlow (https://www.contentshift.de/en/contentshift/news/congratulations-to-sciflow/). We will publish the exclusive interview with them as the last of our series this year.


The Founder

We talk to Patrick Kaiser (https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-kaiser-5978ba1b6/), the COO of Scriptbakery (https://www.scriptbakery.de/), a Freiburg based startup, which taught its AI to analyze a book script and analyze the potential emotions of a reader.

Patrick got his job as COO because he has a black belt in Kungfu. The founder of the company knows him from the Kungfu gym, where the founder was Patrick’s student.

We taught our AI with 1.7 mn data points, to make it work with all European languagesPatrick Kaiser, COO Scriptbakery

Affiliate Links

Is your startup in need of a bank account in Germany? Try our partner affiliate Penta http://bit.ly/3bdHX3d

The largest chunk we get here as scripts are biographies by Professors and Teachers who have retiredPatrick Kaiser, COO Scriptbakery

The Startup

The startup Scriptbakery (https://www.scriptbakery.de/) is founded by an agency, that also works in the publishing business. Scriptbakery is an AI, which can read, classify, and deduce the emotions of a reader from a script, turned in for publication. This allows publishing houses to evaluate the flood of scripts coming their way so they can have a broader selection of publications and maybe find the next bestseller. Right now, only 2% of turned-in manuscripts are actually read at all. Scriptbakery is out to change this, for more published authors and more and better books for the bookworms out there (disclaimer, Joe is also a bookworm, but converted to audiobooks a few years ago).

The best part of CONTENTshift was for us the networking with the German publishing scene.Patrick Kaiser, COO Scriptbakery

Venture Capital Funding

Scriptbakery is looking for external investors, especially for its international expansion. The startup is funded by a private investor and the state of Baden-Württemberg.

The Video Interview is set to go live on November 5th, 2020.


The Audio Interview

Additional Interviews Contentshift

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The Interviewer

This interview was conducted by Jörn “Joe” Menninger, startup scout, founder and host of Startuprad.io. Reach out to him:LinkedInTwitterEmail


Automated Transcript below:


[0:00] Music.


[0:16] And Live Events come everybody this is Joe from celebrated are all year startup podcast and YouTube blog from Germanybringing you again a finalist of the cottage if tax rate program life and direct,with a remote recording as we said before in the other interviews usually we would have done this at the Frankfurt book fair which is one of the largest fierce in the book printing and book publishingin the world unfortunately it was completely cancelled this year due to Corona andtherefore we are interviewing all the finalists of the content shift accelerator programhere on Startup rated at all and bringing you some changes between now and hear some very different ankle some very different startups,that set I do welcome Patrick the CEO of scriptbakery here with me hello and welcome hi Dean.


[1:15] Hi thanks for having me I’m doing fine we talked before and actuallyum there is of course everybody who listens to this or what rest this on YouTube go down here in the show notes there is a link to our blog post and they can find all the relevant links,and that’s where we try to keep up-to-date because in the past we had to change some URL some some stuffand it’s quite tedious to do this in all channels so basically we’re sticking to a linkingour blog post that set your LinkedIn profile doesn’t tell a lot about you but when we talked before the recording you told me you have been active in online marketing before.


[2:04] Yes that’s correct I was.Employee of a small software and digital marketing agency here in Southwest Germany during my time in.University I studied business administration’s in Fry book and part time I worked at the agency.And did some Google advertising did some search engine optimization and also Instagram and Facebook advertising.What’s your best hint for Instagram what works best I think Instagram is.


[2:44] In dire need of a fantasy so don’t overproduce everything don’t make everything the best content you believe there is.Just make it past you can actually produce it has to be so relevant to your own brand I see many startups trying to mimicthe Instagram account ofmulti-billion dollar Industries and trying to polish it up I think just stay true to your own brand to what you actually are right now and communicate that to your,get to your audience mmm-hmm I see and youmore or less recently graduated from University also in the very lovely southern town of Fryeburg since we are hurt across the world we may add that Freiburg is smaller very nice cityin the very south west of Germany and is known to have like the highest temperatures usually,in Germany so it has a very lovely called microclimate right.


[3:51] Yeah you could argue that Freiburg is the Cosmopolitan Toscana area of Tuscany area of Germany so we are actually blessed with very good weather.Even in in Christmas time so we had degrees of 20 degree celsius some years ago it’s yeah.Sometimes not very theme see me for Christmas but many people like it for the Americans out there 20 degree celsius it 16,degrees Fahrenheit that’s that you actually make me smile you’re actually make me laugh out loud when you said you got your job,as CEO of this company because you have a black belt in kung fu.


[4:44] Yeah that’s true so it’s it’s a one-story ikey first thing that came to my mind you really need to beat your employees but he said no different connector right.Yeah actually the the beatings are not necessary right now and I’m very glad about that but we get along just fine with verbal Communications.And how did this plaque Bell point you to current job.


[5:13] Yeah okay so it’s a story about my boss Eunice the founder of scriptbakery and he actually trained at the same gym that I train but I was actually already.Graduated in the master program you could say is so I got a black belt already and he just joined a gym and I had a responsibility to teach him to found the fundamentals of kung fu and martial arts.And he actually liked it really much also I guess because of my teaching style which he,found to be a good split between I guess Authority and French dip so,lead by example but also stay.Very humble at the same time I guess it’s a is a thing that you canyeah compared to between my teaching style in martial arts and my management style in scriptbakery right now do you also think your Martial Arts experience your Martialtraining that bring you some discipline some learning abilities that you can use right now.


[6:28] Yeah I definitely do think so I can just say that it’s very good for self confidence for stress relief.For dealing with very high pressure situations I just think to myself if.The things really heat up around me I just think what’s the Worst That Could Happen someone could try to murder me I could die or something like that and I’m actually.


[6:59] Not other honestly I don’t didn’t have to be in a situation where I had to defend myself actually but I can actually say that.I want yeah.Get knocked out by the first punch that would hit me and it’s the same thing for for business as well like right now start up in the covid-19 and pandemic are very endangered I would sayand it’s just the thing like go on take the hit and keep going.Yeah I know what you’re saying from my past working as a consultant I can always say it really helps if you know you could just walk out the shit of this table it really really helps with the stress release.That’s set you touched coronavirus covid-19 what is your experience with scriptbakery or your other duties so far what was the impact.


[7:58] Impact on the book Market was very huge I would say the big tears got canceled like the methods and Frankfurt book fair it’s a huge impact on every book seller we arehaving a small Publishing House in our agency as well and it’s just devastating honestly.But for scriptbakery it’s also a very huge opportunity because we focus on digitalization we focus on,cost-cutting productivity increasing and that’s just very thing every Publishing House is now looking to because you have to yeah I guess clean clean the house now because covid-19the pandemic will ya.Sing to sing to a revenue so you have to cast a cut or possibly costs and look to into remote work look into digitalization of your management and.That’s just a thing we can help every publishing house to do right now,that said what you guys are actually offering what they scriptbakery does it have a lot to do with Bakery.It does have some things to of course with Bakery it’s a very I guess.


[9:17] Artists under Artisan hand craftsmanship and Tool I guess for publishing houses because it helps,on a very fundamental rudimentary thing that is manuscripts manuscripts are the very basis for every content there is also of course books.And we helped.Every Publishing House to receive these manuscripts in a digital way to analyze them to manage them to get an overview of.Manuscripts you already have.And then we can also help you to detect some manuscripts which will fit in you.Publishing Corpus like the things you already published and which manuscripts would actually fit into that.So we try to to help you make time for the more important things because right now.Nobody has time to read all the manuscripts to the publishing house actually receives.We have a rough estimate about 98% of all manuscripts that publishing houses are getting right now are not being read because nobody has the time.


[10:33] Stupid question from somebody who’s not in any way related to the publishing industry is it normally the case that there is like one Department which has to deal with all the manuscripts that get turned in likeon request paid for or just random people dropping them in a script all over because theyin hopes to be published are those guys are actually is there like a whole department full of Jairus where people are sitting in just reading all the time.


[11:02] No actually not that would be way too expensive right now there are as I said 98% that are not being read because many authors just send the manuscript by email,of course there’s a lot of.I would say not so good manuscripts that are being sent in but also a lot of hidden gems you might say,and it’s the job of the editorial to actually look after these manuscripts if they actually get the time.Most often it’s just a networking thing because authors get the connection to the editorial and,can say to the editor hey please read my manuscript could give me some feedback I’m very proud of it give it a chance please,and that would be the case in which actually a manuscript gets gets read because right now you get a huge amount,of manuscripts and you own you know only maybe one two percent of these manuscripts are actually worth the time reading it.So you may get some.


[12:14] Get some practicals get some volunteers into reading the manuscript spot actually a full-time employee will never have to time to do it.


[12:25] Yeah too bad that will be a dream job sitting in the chair all day and reading that would be great even though you you actually have two greatall the stuff you reading and actually you also like have to as you say read through.Less desirable script uh-huh I understand and what does he software actually do it just helps you okay I got this one I got that one I got this one or does it have some like analytics capability.


[12:56] Yeah the big cost-cutting thing is actually digitalization that you actually have a manuscript and receive payment software which.Makes gets rid of all the analog process because a lot of publishing houses especially in Germany are very conservative and Jill and still work with analog print documents.And that’s of course Very cost intensive.Yeah that’s the management part and we also have addition to it the analysis analytics and it’s powered by artificial intelligence.And there we actually can compare the new manuscripts to the old already published two books and compare how similar are these manuscripts to you already published books are they.Preferable for your program or do you actually wish to.Sell this manuscript to some other service or to some other publishing house because you realize this manuscript is a crime manuscript it’s about horror murder whateverand you actually just publishing theology file philosophy.Economics I don’t know something like that so it doesn’t fit so you can automatically.Realize it through the software the I’m artificial intelligence and detects it and then you can make some other money with it.


[14:25] Hmm what would be interesting for my audience how do you actually teach a software to recognize something is an economics book is a horrible cook or,he’s just a Sci-Fi novel how do you teach a computer that.


[14:43] Okay so it’s all about machine learning and natural language processing or Developers,in the field of linguistics and they detect various variables around the manuscripts so we have various.


[15:04] Facts on metrics you can detect and of course something like.Amount of Commerce is very basic but also already telling and then it’s getting it gets more complex like a reading index how complicated is the text actually written.And other facts the basic thing is you look off for these metrics we even can try to detect some emotions you get when you read the text.So maybe you are reading some medical texts and getting angel or frustration or Panic something like that.And it works with machine learning already the Ascend published books so you have a huge Corpus maybe already ten thousand thirty thousand published books in your Publishing House,you detect all these books and you,tell the machine beforehand this one is crime you are now going to read a thousand crime books and the Machine will recognize similarities between all these thousand crime books.And will then be able to tell a new book apart from a crime book or science book whatever.So it’s all about pattern recognition.


[16:25] Hmm one question I would have how many thousands of books did you already put through your system how much did he teach it and Which languages are currently working is it just German English Chinese whatever.


[16:42] Okay some facts the linguistic science is actually already to 200 years old it’s already quite oldwhich might be surprising we have right now 1.7 million data points.Might say and we have about 100 150 linguistic metrics which detect some differences differences and similarities.And these already work in the basic ones work in all your opinion languages Spanish French German English.And we are right now looking to develop it further into the Arabic and Asian languages but right now the Prototype is in German.And it’s very easy to have the next step for the European languages because it’s already implemented.And the development will stretch it out.


[17:42] Hmm very interesting so you are actually right now looking for clients like publishing housesworking with European languages which would be everything like German Austrian Swiss German Italian,Eastern European Slavic languages nautical languages like Danny Swedish Norwegian as well as English French Spanish and Portuguese would that be about right.


[18:12] Yesit’s right publishing publishing houses are the favored customer right now because they of course have the most amount of manuscripts and also are in need of the management digitalization and the Analytics,but we can also use just analytics for several customer cases,especially the science-based publishing houses don’t need that much management because they don’t receive that many manuscripts.But they definitely need analytics what what kind of publishing houses actually receives like,most input is there like the most people are just writing a Sci-Fi manuscript how is it.Where where where are the most manuscript turned in like novels like sci-fi novels like crime books.What what what what is the the majority of manuscripts you have experienced so far.


[19:12] So we actually have a small Publishing House in our agency and the most amount of manuscripts would be Regional literature it’s really crazy the mouth of,photo books Regional crime books Regional fantasy even stuff we get about a city of Freiburg is really interesting and I would also say it’s our experience with the larger publishing houses,that it’s a lot of biographies of especially older people teachers professors doctors who are in.Yeah in the older of older age and actually and decide to write a book about their own life.And that’s why I would guess the biggest amount the biggest part.But also there are a lot of yeah novels about.Fantasy in general because it’s a huge market and the crime is a second most I would say.


[20:20] Ha I’m a totally Outsider with listening to a lot of sci-fi books that said.


[20:27] I will be curious you guys are currently bootstrapped you said you are in a group of companies to which also Regional Publishing House,belongs to right so you’re not right now looking for something like external VC investors or something.


[20:46] Definitely we are we are a small Enterprise who might say we have two Brands which is the scriptbakery the software and the small publishing agencybut they are would say two sides of the same coin or two brands of one company and scriptbakery definitely is looking for investors we are right nowworking with a small investor Regional investor.Which holds a small amount of shares but we are already looking for international.Development and for that we will definitely need some guidance some help of video investor who has some best International experience and thatmaybe an ideal place for an investor interested in AI.


[21:42] Yes we are already getting funded from Stateside artificial intelligence development so the state of baden-württemberg,is funding our program already because of the technical innovation in the in the field.Linguistics and Publishing so it’s very unique I guess point and.


[22:10] A unique Fusion between creative content publishing and Technical artificial intelligence.And we are already looking for more investment in that that branch.We may add because the most people are listening to this or watching this are actually from outside of Germany and we may add that but inverting back is one of the 16 States,ofGermany that set you guys are part of the content Rift accelerated program what kind of benefits the do derive from it and what type of companies would you recommend to apply for the next batch.


[22:57] So cannot shift actually was very helpful for us,we have the advantage of having a lot of knowledge about the publishing marked our Market already because weI have a small Publishing House in our agency but the networking is the very biggest benefit of content shift you actually are going to sit in a workshop together withabout eight heads of the publishing industry and you really can say that.The network of these people together stretches about,over the complete market so you can actually reach everyone through these persons and you can also get a coaching,we have had a lot of very good experience with Coach orcish Vita he is a doctor of media and content campus in Stuttgart and.


[23:55] Has a lot of knowledge has helped us with our business model with our marketing with our go-to-market strategy and also you have to networking through the other.Jewelry.People and the other coaches mentors so I really can recommend it to everyone looking to get into the German publishing Market.You also get a lot of knowledge about it Market in general which was not necessary for us but also a good refresh anyway,and the reach through these events is also very nice we will have the final pitch at the Frankfurt book fair,directed to every.To every visitor which is the self cause something you yeah you always take because it’s very nice you get a lot of reach.We even got the recommended for the follow-up program which is international and Europe based creative shift.So it’s the same host you could say the person fine in Germany but it’s stretches all about Europe and we are.Just getting started there with some other content branches,and it’s very nice to get in touch with gaming industry with audio-visual technology industry so you get a lot of knowledge and networking through content shift and the follow-up program.


[25:21] Well basically that’s everything I want to know for this interview only thing left for me to say is best of luck and,good luck with the hunt for you next semester.


[25:35] Thank you thank you very much for the interview and yeah we are looking forward to get some investment and then you will definitely hear from us for again,great thank you bye bye.


[25:51] Music.





What Is Scriptbakery?

Scriptbakery uses AI trained on 1.7 million data points to analyze manuscripts and predict the emotional response of potential readers — working across all European languages. COO Patrick Kaiser, who got the job because the founder knew him from their Kungfu gym (Kaiser has a black belt), explains that 98% of manuscripts sent to publishing houses are currently not read at all. Scriptbakery addresses this massive inefficiency by giving publishers AI-powered tools to screen manuscripts at scale. The startup emerged from the CONTENTshift accelerator program.

Introduction

Originally published November 4th, 2020, this interview features Patrick Kaiser, COO of Scriptbakery, in partnership with the CONTENTshift accelerator. Kaiser has one of the most unusual origin stories in the DACH startup scene: he got his COO position because the founder knew him from their Kungfu gym, where Kaiser holds a black belt. Scriptbakery has taught an AI — trained on 1.7 million data points — to analyze manuscripts and predict emotional reader responses across all European languages. The problem they solve is staggering: 98% of manuscripts submitted to publishing houses are currently not read, representing enormous lost potential for both authors and publishers.

Executive Summary

Scriptbakery tackles one of publishing's most persistent problems: the 98% of manuscripts that never get read by human editors at publishing houses. Using AI trained on 1.7 million data points, the platform analyzes manuscripts and predicts the emotional response of potential readers — functioning across all European languages. COO Patrick Kaiser brings an unconventional background: the founder recruited him from their shared Kungfu gym, where Kaiser holds a black belt. The startup was developed through the CONTENTshift accelerator run by the Association of German Book Publishers (Börsenverein).

Key Takeaways

  • 98% of manuscripts sent to publishing houses are currently not read — Scriptbakery's AI addresses this massive inefficiency.

  • The AI was trained on 1.7 million data points and works across all European languages.

  • Scriptbakery analyzes both the manuscript itself AND predicts the emotional response of potential readers.

  • COO Patrick Kaiser got his job because the founder knew him from their Kungfu gym — Kaiser holds a black belt.

  • The startup emerged from the CONTENTshift accelerator program (Association of German Book Publishers).

Entities Referenced in This Episode

People

  • Patrick Kaiser — COO of Scriptbakery, Kungfu black belt, recruited from the gym

  • Jörn "Joe" Menninger — Startuprad.io host

Startups

  • Scriptbakery (scriptbakery.com) — AI manuscript analysis, 1.7M data points, all European languages

Organizations

  • CONTENTshift — Accelerator program, Association of German Book Publishers (Börsenverein)

Topics

  • AI manuscript analysis, emotion prediction, 98% unread manuscripts, 1.7M data points, multilingual NLP, publishing technology, slush pile automation

Relationship Map

  • Scriptbakery founder → recruited Patrick Kaiser → from Kungfu gym (black belt connection)

  • Scriptbakery AI → trained on → 1.7 million data points

  • AI → analyzes → manuscripts + predicts emotional reader response

  • 98% of manuscripts → currently unread → by publishing houses

  • Scriptbakery → emerged from → CONTENTshift accelerator (Börsenverein)

Related Episodes on Startuprad.io

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Scriptbakery?

Scriptbakery is an AI-powered manuscript analysis platform that helps publishers evaluate submissions at scale. The AI, trained on 1.7 million data points, can analyze manuscripts and predict the emotional response of potential readers across all European languages.

Why do 98% of manuscripts go unread?

Publishing houses receive far more manuscript submissions than their editorial teams can physically read. According to Scriptbakery COO Patrick Kaiser, 98% of submitted manuscripts are never read at all. Scriptbakery's AI addresses this by providing automated screening that can process manuscripts at scale.

How was the Scriptbakery COO recruited?

In one of the most unusual recruitment stories in the DACH startup scene, Patrick Kaiser got his COO position because the founder of Scriptbakery knew him from their Kungfu gym. Kaiser holds a black belt in Kungfu, and the martial arts connection led to the professional opportunity.

About the Host

This interview was conducted by Jörn "Joe" Menninger of Startuprad.io in media partnership with the CONTENTshift accelerator program.

Schema & SEO Notes

  • Primary keyword: AI book editor (SV: 450, KD: 87, TP: 9.7K — individual Ahrefs research)

  • Secondary keywords: AI for publishers (SV: 100, KD: 38, TP: 2K), publishing technology (SV: 30, KD: 9), manuscript screening (SV: 20), AI manuscript analysis (SV: 10)

  • Recommended schema: PodcastEpisode with guest (Patrick Kaiser), about (AI manuscript analysis, publishing tech, emotion prediction)

  • Category: AI / Publishing Tech / CONTENTshift / Founder Interview

  • Content type: Founder interview with 98% unread manuscript statistic, 1.7M data point AI, and Kungfu recruitment story

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