Galley for self-publishing authors
Type the last sentence, and the files are already made.
Self-publishing usually means drafting in one tool, formatting in another, checking the result in a third, and often paying someone to fix what went wrong between them. Galley is meant to replace all of that. You pick the trim size and typeface before chapter one, so the page you write on is the page that gets printed, and there's nothing to convert at the end.
Book title set
Author name set
No cover image
EPUB exports without a cover; KDP requires one at publish
No blurb
KDP asks for a book description
About 418 pages, inside KDP’s 24 to 828
No empty chapters
Table of contents page
KDP publishes in English (US)
Copyright page not reviewed
Still our default wording. Read it, because it publishes under your name.
3 of 12 chapters marked final
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.”
KDP preflight
1 blocking · 5 warnings
The things Amazon checks, checked before you upload: title, author, cover, blurb, page count, contents and more.
Why Galley works for this
No formatting week at the end
Because you don't import your manuscript into a formatting tool at the end, nothing breaks at that stage. You choose from six trim sizes, 35 book typefaces licensed for commercial publishing, and five chapter opening styles, and Galley handles the mirrored margins and gutter. You set it up once and every chapter follows it. Formatting usually takes much longer than planned because you're turning a document into a book. In Galley, it's already laid out as a book.
The paperback and the ebook come from the same book
A paperback needs a print-interior PDF with fixed pages, and an ebook needs an EPUB that reflows. Galley makes both from the same book, so when you fix a typo, it's fixed in both. If you keep separate files for print and ebook, they usually end up with differences you didn't intend.
One EPUB per store, if you want to be fussy
You can export a separate file for Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, Google Play and Nook. Older Kindle and Nook e-ink readers display drop caps on top of the text next to them, so those files use a raised initial instead, and the other three keep the drop cap. If you've saved store links for your other books, the "Also by" page links to the same store the reader bought from.
Two checks before you upload
KDP preflight checks whether Amazon will accept the file. It looks for a title, author and description, a cover, a page count your trim size allows, no empty chapters, a table of contents, and every chapter marked Final. Delivery readiness checks whether the book is finished, and it's stricter. It flags very short chapters, a missing copyright page, comments you never resolved, and quoted material you haven't got permission for yet.
The boring pages, written for you
The copyright page is filled in from the details you've already entered, like your ISBN, so you don't need a template. The table of contents is made automatically. Glossary terms and references become pages at the back of the book, and endnotes are renumbered when you move a chapter.
You pay once, and nothing reads your book
Galley costs €199 once and includes every feature and export format. No AI writes, rewrites or suggests anything, and your manuscript isn't used to train anything. Amazon asks whether your book has AI-generated content when you publish, and with Galley you can answer no.
From first draft to the finished files
Each step links to the bit of the docs that explains it.
| Stage | What Galley does | Read on |
|---|---|---|
| Set the book up | Trim size, typeface, chapter openings, scene breaks, British or American house style. Ten minutes, once. | Book design |
| Write it | On the finished page, with the story bible in the next tab and focus mode when you want everything else hidden. | The writing room |
| Revise it | Check overused words, names spelled two ways, mixed British and American spelling, and chapter lengths. | Revision |
| Get it read | Watermarked drafts, one per advance reader. A proofreading PDF at two pages a sheet for anyone with a red pen. | Copies for other people |
| Fill in the listing | Cover, blurb, ISBN, categories and keywords in one place. The copyright page fills itself in from them. | Cover and listing |
| Run both checks | Preflight for what Amazon would reject, and delivery readiness for anything unfinished. | Preflight |
| Export and upload | Print-interior PDF, EPUB 3, a tuned file per store, and a large-print edition of the same book. | Every export format |
| Then do the next one | Group books into a series so they share a design, or make a second edition or translation that keeps the chapters and story bible. | Series and editions |
The features you’ll use most
Everything in Galley comes at one price. These are the ones you’ll spend the most time in.
- Book preview See the print pages, or the ebook on an e-reader
- Print-ready PDF Sized to your trim, with mirrored margins and a gutter
- EPUB 3 A valid EPUB 3 with your cover page
- Store-ready EPUBs A version each for Kindle, Kobo and Apple Books
- KDP preflight Title, cover, blurb and page count checked before you upload
- Delivery readiness Flags empty chapters, open comments and a missing copyright page
- Cover & listing Cover, blurb, ISBN, categories, keywords, in one place
- The copyright page Filled in from your book’s details
- Large print PDF The same book in a bigger type size
- Proofreading PDF Two pages per sheet, for marking up on paper
- Share a copy A file or a link for each reader, with their name on it
- Series Start the next book with this one’s story bible and design
The full inventory is longer than this. There’s no higher tier to hold anything back for.
Where Galley is the wrong tool
You’re buying decorative interiors
Vellum's themed interiors are much better than anything else out there. Galley only does classic book layouts, so if themes are what you want, Vellum is the better choice.
You need a cover designed
Galley stores your cover and checks it's there before you upload, but it doesn't design one. You'll still need a designer or a cover tool for that.
You’re putting together a box set
You can group books into a series, but Galley can't combine them into one box set file yet. For now you'd have to do that part yourself.
Questions
I’m self-publishing. What do I actually get at the end?
Two files, mainly. A print-interior PDF sized to your trim, with mirrored margins and a real gutter so the inside edge doesn't vanish into the spine, and a valid EPUB 3 with your cover and working chapter navigation. If you want to be fussier there's a tuned EPUB per store, for Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, Google Play and Nook. The copyright page and the table of contents write themselves out of what you already filled in. Then two checks before you upload: KDP preflight tells you what Amazon will reject, and delivery readiness answers the harder question of whether the book is finished as a book.
Galley for self-publishing authorsThe self-publishing walkthrough
Is it only for Amazon KDP?
No. The output is standard: print-interior PDF and EPUB 3 work with KDP, IngramSpark, Draft2Digital, Kobo, Apple Books, or a local printer. KDP gets a bit of extra attention, with its trims and preflight checks built in, because that's where most self-publishers start.
Can I do both, query agents and self-publish?
Yes, and a lot of people end up doing exactly that. It's one book either way, so there's no migration between the two paths: the manuscript export, the print PDF and the EPUB all sit in the same menu. Draft milestones let you mark and name a version, so "the draft I sent my agent" stays something you can open a year later when she finally replies and asks whether much has changed.