Book writing software for writing a novel in Malay

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

Three things to know before you start, and one of them is a limit.

Rumi is fully supported. Malay in Latin script uses the plain alphabet, so all fifteen book faces set it, nothing is hidden on the shelf, and nothing breaks at export. Your choice of face is a design decision and not a coverage one.

Jawi is not. Galley has three Arabic-script faces, and they are cut for Arabic, Persian and Urdu. None of them is set up for Jawi, which needs its own letters and its own orthographic conventions on top of the Arabic script. If your book is in Jawi, Galley is not the tool for that part of it, and it is better to read that here than to find it out with a manuscript half written.

Amazon does not list Malay in any format. So the file is the whole product: a print-ready PDF a Malaysian printer can work from, and a valid EPUB for Google Play, Apple Books, Kobo or a local store.

There is also no hyphenation for Malay, so justify with care or set the book ragged right. Justification is off by default.

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 Malay gets typeset

All fifteen faces are available for a Rumi book.

There is no hyphenation. Ragged right never needs it.

Sorting is Malay, so a cast list comes out predictably with the prefixed and reduplicated forms as written.

Italics work, on a drawn italic in all fifteen faces, which Malay fiction leans on for Arabic and English loanwords.

The typefaces you get for Malay

Fifteen faces, all under the SIL Open Font License. Five are recommended: EB Garamond, Crimson Pro, Cormorant, Lora and Libre Baskerville.

EB Garamond is the safe first choice for a novel.

Spectral was drawn for long-form reading and sets an even page.

Newsreader holds up small if your extent is pushing your spine.

The rest of the shelf: Crimson Pro, Cormorant, Lora, Libre Baskerville, Literata, Source Serif 4, Alegreya, Vollkorn, Cardo, Gentium Book Plus, Libre Caslon Text and Charis SIL. The typeface documentation lists every face by language.

Exports for a Malay novel

• Print-ready PDF at your trim, mirrored margins, real gutter, font embedded.
• EPUB 3 with your cover, tagged ms.
• Store-ready EPUBs for Kobo and Apple Books.
• Word and Markdown for an editor or an archive.
• Manuscript format, double-spaced.
• 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 Malay book and say why.

Malay punctuation

Malay sets speech in the curly double pair, which is what Galley types on a Malay book. Arabic and English loanwords are italicised by convention, and the style sheet in the story bible is where to record which ones you have decided are naturalised.

The dialogue punctuation rules and dashes, hyphens and ellipses sheets cover the general cases.

How long a Malay novel is

Malay publishers quote length in words and printed pages. Malay runs longer than English in word count for the same story because of its affixation. Galley counts words and projects a page count at your trim.

The word count to page count converter should be a helpful resource for you.

Trim sizes for a Malay book

Six standards, from mass market at 4.25×6.87 inches to Royal at 6.14×9.21. Malay trade fiction is commonly issued around 13×19cm or 14.5×21.5cm, which land near the small trade at 5×8 inches and the Digest at 5.5×8.5. The spine width calculator and the trim size comparison would be helpful here.

Metadata and the copyright page

The copyright page writes itself from the metadata you filled in. A Malaysian ISBN comes from Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia.

Translating into or out of Malay

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, with the editor split so the original sits read-only beside what you write.

There are pages on writing a novel in Indonesian, writing a novel in Vietnamese and writing a novel in Arabic, which covers the Arabic-script side of the shelf in full.

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

Self-publishing and traditional publishing in Malay

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

Traditional publishing. Malay publishing runs through established houses and through Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, and both read submissions. 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.
• From manuscript to published book is the whole route.