The Galley blog
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Publishing Accessible Ebooks and the European Accessibility Act What the EAA means for a self-published novel sold in the EU: accessibility metadata, what makes an EPUB accessible, the microenterprise exemption, and the large-print edition nobody makes. -
Publishing How to Write a Book Blurb, and Format It for Amazon How a novel's back-cover blurb is built, how long it should be, the mistakes that make readers scroll past, and how to format the description for an Amazon listing. -
Formatting Book Margins and the Gutter: The Numbers for KDP KDP's minimum margins by page count, why the inside margin (the gutter) has to grow as a book gets thicker, and what margins a novel should actually use. -
Guides The Best Book Writing Software for Self-Publishing Novelists (2026) A no-hype guide to the writing tools novelists actually use (Scrivener, Vellum, Atticus, Ulysses, Dabble, Reedsy, and Galley), sorted by what you need each one to do. -
Guides Book Writing Software Without a Subscription Every serious book writing and formatting tool you can buy once instead of renting, what each one costs, and the subscription tools that also sell a lifetime licence. -
Publishing Galley for Self-Publishing What self-publishing a novel in Galley involves: a print-ready interior PDF, a valid EPUB, a tuned file per store, and two checks that run before you upload to KDP. -
Guides How to Back Up a Novel Properly Why a single copy in the cloud isn't a backup, the 3-2-1 rule in plain terms for a novelist, and the formats your manuscript should be saved in so you can open it in twenty years. -
Publishing Galley for Traditional Publishing Querying agents or working with an editor: standard manuscript format, the submission package, watermarked beta drafts, and getting an editor's Word comments back where they belong. -
Publishing Translating Your Own Novel What changes when you translate your own book, from idioms and names to quote marks and typesetting, whether you should do it at all, and how to keep the translation in step with the original. -
Design The Best Fonts for a Novel Interior, and the Licence You Need Which typefaces novels are actually set in, the free open-licensed revivals of them, and why a font you own on your computer may not be licensed for your book. -
Craft How Long Should a Novel Be? Word Counts by Genre The word-count ranges agents and readers actually expect (fantasy, romance, thriller, YA, literary), and what to do if you're way over or under. -
Formatting How to Choose a Trim Size for Your Novel What trim size means, the standard sizes for fiction (5×8, 5.5×8.5, 6×9 and the UK B-format), and how to pick the one that suits your genre and page count.