Write on the real page of your book
You pick the trim and typeface first, then write on that page.
Most writing apps give you one long document, and the book only gets laid out at the end, which is usually when things go wrong. In Galley you pick your trim size, typeface and chapter openings first, and you write on that page from the first sentence. So when you finish, there's nothing left to reformat.
CHAPTER ONE
A Scandal in Bohemia
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind.
I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away from each other. My own complete happiness, and the home-centred interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention, while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature.
His manner was not effusive. It seldom was; but he was glad, I think, to see me. With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly eye, he waved me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a spirit case and a gasogene in the corner.
“Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed.”
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name.
He waved me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a spirit case and a gasogene in the corner.
* * *
“Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed.”
Glossary
gasogene
A Victorian siphon for making soda water at home: two glass globes in a wire or wicker cage. Holmes keeps one in the corner of the sitting room at Baker Street.
Pick the book before you write it
There are six trim sizes, from mass market to Royal, and 35 typefaces, all licensed for commercial publishing. Some of the typefaces are made for Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali, Thai, Japanese, Chinese and Korean, so books in those languages are set in a face that supports them properly. There are five styles of chapter opening, from a plain title to one with an ornament. You set these once and every chapter uses them. If you have your own ornament for chapter openings, you can upload it.
Book design
The interior conventions: trim, chapter openings, scene breaks, ornaments, justification
Page
Trim size
Small trade · 5×8″⌄Novellas and shorter fiction
Running heads
Title & chapter⌄Book title verso, chapter recto
Justify body text
Flush margins on both sides, the traditional printed-book look. Off keeps a ragged right edge.
Hyphenate
Break words at the margin so justified lines space evenly. Off avoids broken words, at the cost of looser gaps between them.
Scenes
Scene breaks
Chapters
Chapter openings
“CHAPTER ONE” above the title, the commercial standard
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name.
He waved me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a spirit case and a gasogene in the corner.
* * *
“Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed.”
Book design
Chapter number + title
Trim, running heads, justification, chapter openings and scene breaks, set once for the whole book.
The conventions are handled for you
The first paragraph of a chapter isn't indented and the ones after it are. Typing three dashes gives you a scene break. Running heads put your name and the title at the top of the page. If you set the book to British or American English, the spelling checks, quote marks and hyphenation follow that setting. You don't need to know any of this to get it right.
Fewer things on screen
Focus mode hides everything except the page. Typewriter scroll keeps the line you're writing in the middle of the screen instead of at the bottom. You can keep the page light while the rest of the app is dark, which helps if you write late at night. Type @ to insert a character's name or # for a place, so names are always spelled the same way.
CHAPTER ONE
A Scandal in Bohemia
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind.
I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away from each other. My own complete happiness, and the home-centred interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention, while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature.
His manner was not effusive. It seldom was; but he was glad, I think, to see me. With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly eye, he waved me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a spirit case and a gasogene in the corner.
“Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed.”
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name.
He waved me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a spirit case and a gasogene in the corner.
* * *
“Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed.”
Focus mode
Just the page
The sidebar and the toolbars go. Your word count stays in the corner.
And it saves
Galley saves while you type, when you leave the page, and when you press ⌘S. If a save fails, it tells you.
What's included
Click any of these for the bit of the docs that explains it.
- Chapter openings Five styles, from a plain title to one with an ornament
- Scene breaks Type three dashes for a scene break
- Running heads Your name and the title at the top of each page
- House style British or American, justified, properly hyphenated
- Your own ornaments Upload the flourish that opens a chapter or breaks a scene
- Typewriter scroll The line you are writing stays at eye level
- A chapter beside Read another chapter next to the one you’re writing
- Light & dark paper Switch the page, keep the room dark
- Accent themes Five accent colours for the app
- Block styles Body text, titles and scene breaks
- Inline comments Notes in the margin that you can resolve
- Search everything ⌘K finds any chapter, name, term or clipping
- Keyboard shortcuts A shortcut for most things, with the full list in the docs
More features
The story bible
Characters, places, a timeline and your research, in tabs beside the book.
Revision
Galley counts and checks the whole book, and you decide what to change.
Toolkit
Exports, preflight and the submission package are all in one menu.
Safe & Secure
Only you can read it, it’s backed up, and no AI is trained on it.