Book writing software for writing a novel in Sorani Kurdish

Why Galley is the right book writing software for a novel in Sorani Kurdish

Sorani is written in a modified Arabic script that adds the Persian letters پ چ ژ گ and then its own: ڵ, ڕ, ۆ and ێ. Unlike Arabic, Sorani writes its vowels, which means the text is denser in distinct characters and a face with partial coverage fails visibly instead of subtly. All three Naskh faces on Galley’s shelf carry the Kurdish set, and Scheherazade New, built by SIL for the languages that borrow the Arabic script, has the deepest coverage of the three.

Two limits worth stating before you start.

Kurmanji in Latin script is not a separate language setting. Galley carries Sorani under the Arabic script. If you write Kurmanji in the Latin alphabet you can set the book to a Latin language and get the fifteen Latin faces, but the hyphenation patterns and the EPUB tag will belong to that language and not to Kurdish, and that is a compromise rather than support.

Amazon does not list Kurdish in any format. So the print-ready PDF and the valid EPUB are the whole product.

Everything else is the same app: a true book page at your trim, the story bible beside the manuscript, a print-ready PDF and a valid EPUB.

How Sorani gets typeset

Direction is a print decision. The recto is the left-hand page, margins, running heads and folios mirror with the gutter, and both exports declare right-to-left page progression.

Letters join, so headings do not letter-space.

There is no italic, no hyphenation and no kashida justification. Set the book ragged right, which is what justification being off by default already gives you.

Search folds the marks that should fold and keeps the letters that carry meaning.

The typefaces you get for Sorani Kurdish

Three Naskh faces, all under the SIL Open Font License.

Scheherazade New is the one to start with, for coverage.

Amiri is the literary Naskh, modelled on the Bulaq Press types.

Noto Naskh Arabic is the broad default.

The typeface documentation lists every face by language.

Exports for a Kurdish novel

• Print-ready PDF at your trim, mirrored the correct way, shaped properly, font embedded.
• EPUB 3 with your cover, tagged ckb, with right-to-left page progression.
• Store-ready EPUBs for Kobo and Apple Books.
• Word and Markdown for an editor or an archive.
• Manuscript format, double-spaced, running right to left.
• A proofreading PDF two pages to a sheet, and a large print PDF.
• A watermarked copy per beta reader.

The Amazon-shaped tools switch off on a Kurdish book and say why.

Kurdish punctuation

Sorani uses the Arabic comma ، and question mark ؟, both ordinary characters that survive typing and both exports.

Chapter headings are still the English default. If you write in Kurdish and want to tell me what the convention should be, say so.

How long a Kurdish novel is

Galley counts words, live, per chapter and per book, and projects a page count at your trim. The word count to page count converter helps here.

Trim sizes for a Kurdish book

Six standards, from mass market at 4.25×6.87 inches to Royal at 6.14×9.21. Regional publishing commonly uses formats near 14×21cm, between the Digest at 5.5×8.5 inches and Royal. The trim size comparison and the spine width calculator do the sums.

Metadata and the copyright page

Every field detects its own direction, so a Kurdish title and a Latin ISBN both come out right. The copyright page writes itself from what you filled in.

Translating into or out of Kurdish

A translation in Galley is its own book: its own language, its own typeface shelf, its own ISBN, its own cover, still linked to the original.

There are pages on writing a novel in Arabic, writing a novel in Persian and writing a novel in Turkish.

No machine touches the prose. Galley has no AI anywhere near your writing.

Self-publishing and traditional publishing in Kurdish

Self-publishing. Amazon is closed, so print goes to a regional printer or IngramSpark and the ebook goes to Google Play, Apple Books or Kobo.

Traditional publishing. Kurdish publishing runs through regional houses and cultural institutions in Iraqi Kurdistan and the diaspora. The submission package assembles the synopsis, the bio and the opening chapters.

The same book exports both. The longer arguments are in Galley for self-publishing and Galley for traditional publishing.

Where to go next

• Writing software for novelists who don’t write in English covers every script Galley sets.
• Book design and typefaces lists every face by language.
• Series and translations covers the full language list.
• EPUB vs print PDF explains what each format can do.