---
title: "Galley for traditional publishing"
description: "Novel writing software for writers querying agents: standard manuscript format, a submission package with synopsis and bio, watermarked beta drafts, and an editor’s Word comments coming back attached to the prose."
source: https://usegalley.com/for/traditional-publishing
---
# Galley for traditional publishing

The manuscript an agent expects, out of the book you actually wrote.

Almost every writing tool sold in the last five years ends its demo with a KDP upload. If you are querying, none of that is your problem yet. Your book does not need a trim size. It needs to arrive looking like every other manuscript on that agent's desk, and it needs to survive two years of being passed around in Word.

*The Galley version history panel showing a list of snapshots and a diff between an earlier draft and the current chapter text.*

The version history panel, comparing an earlier draft against the current text with additions and deletions highlighted.

## Why Galley, *for you specifically*

### Standard manuscript format, to the letter

Times New Roman at 12pt, double-spaced, one-inch margins on US Letter, half-inch first-line indents, scene breaks marked with a hash rather than a decorative glyph, chapters opening about a third of the way down, contact details top left and an approximate word count top right, rounded so it does not look like you counted. The convention is old and boring and it is the first thing that gets checked.

### Two versions, because they are two different jobs

The submission package is the query version: a cover page, your synopsis, your author bio, and the opening chapters, in the order agents ask for them. The full manuscript is the whole book carrying a Surname / Title / page running header on every page, which is what an editor about to line-edit you actually wants.

### You still write on a real page

The submission copy is generated at export. You are never drafting your novel inside double-spaced Times New Roman for a year because a submission guideline said so. Your book keeps its own typeface and its own page, and puts on the uniform only when it goes out.

### The Word round trip keeps the comments

Publishing runs on Word and that is not changing. Export a DOCX, get it back covered in tracked changes and margin notes. Most tools import the edits and silently drop the comments, because comments are not content, and the comments are usually the half you paid for. Galley reads them out of the file and anchors each one to the prose it was pointing at.

### Beta readers, and knowing whose copy leaked

Beta drafts export one file per reader with that reader's name watermarked on every page. It reads as paranoid right up until an unpublished manuscript turns up somewhere, at which point it is the only thing that tells you where it came from.

### The draft you sent stays the draft you sent

Query rounds run long and the book keeps moving underneath them. Draft milestones let you mark and name a version, so "the one I sent in March" is still openable in November when she replies. Under that, every chapter keeps daily snapshots you can compare and restore, and deleted work waits 30 days in the bin.

### A style sheet, before a copyeditor asks for one

Your own spelling law lives beside the manuscript in the story bible, written while you draft rather than reconstructed from a finished book. It is also what stops an editor asking why "grey" became "gray" in chapter twelve.

### Nothing in it is AI, and you can say so

No generation, no suggestion, no rewriting, and nothing trains on your book. Agent submission forms and publishing contracts increasingly ask you to warrant that the work is yours. I built it this way because I wanted it this way, and it has turned out to matter on paperwork.

## What the whole path *looks like*

Every stage links to the part of the docs that explains it.

| Stage | What Galley does | Read on |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Draft it | On a real page, with characters and places one @ away so you never misspell your own protagonist. | The writing room |
| Keep the bible | Characters, aliases, timeline, world-building, research clippings, and the style sheet. | The story bible |
| Revise before you query | The checks your tired eye stopped running: filler rates, name inconsistency, spelling drift, chapter pacing. | Revision |
| Send it to readers | Watermarked beta drafts, one per reader, or a two-up proofreading PDF for the ones who print it. | Drafts for other people |
| Build the submission | Cover page, synopsis, bio and opening chapters, in standard manuscript format, generated from the book. | The submission package |
| Send the full manuscript | The whole book in the same format, with the running header an editor expects on every page. | Every export format |
| Take the edits back | Import the edited DOCX. The changes land, and so do the margin comments, attached to the sentences they were about. | Importing a manuscript |
| Mark what you sent | A named draft milestone per submission round, so the version history is a record rather than a pile. | Version history |
| And if it does not sell | The print PDF and the EPUB are in the same menu. Publishing it yourself is not a migration, it is the next item down. | Exports and the toolkit |

## The features that *matter here*

Everything in Galley is included at one price. These are the ones you will actually live in.

[**Manuscript format** Double-spaced, the way editors ask for it](https://usegalley.com/docs/preview-and-export#for-other-people)[**Submission package** Synopsis, bio, first chapters, agent-ready](https://usegalley.com/docs/publishing#where-it-goes)[**Share a copy** A file or a link per reader, with their name watermarked on it](https://usegalley.com/docs/preview-and-export#for-other-people)[**Word & Markdown** For editors, archives, and stubborn collaborators](https://usegalley.com/docs/preview-and-export#formats)[**Proofreading PDF** Two pages a sheet, made for a red pen](https://usegalley.com/docs/preview-and-export#formats)[**Import your draft** A.docx,.md or.txt splits itself into chapters](https://usegalley.com/docs/your-first-book#import)[**Inline comments** Margin notes to yourself, resolvable](https://usegalley.com/docs/the-story-bible#comments)[**Draft milestones** Mark a draft done and keep it to compare against](https://usegalley.com/docs/revision#version-history)[**Version history** Daily snapshots per chapter, restore any of them](https://usegalley.com/docs/revision#version-history)[**Style sheet** Your spelling and hyphenation rules, your call](https://usegalley.com/docs/the-story-bible#style-sheet)[**Overused words** Your fillers counted, with the chapter where each peaks](https://usegalley.com/docs/revision#overused-words)[**Name consistency** Jeanie 41 times, Jeany once. Found](https://usegalley.com/docs/revision#name-consistency)[**Consistency sweep** British/American, hyphenation, curly quotes, dashes](https://usegalley.com/docs/revision#consistency-sweep)[**No AI on your words** Nothing generated, nothing suggested, nothing trained on](https://usegalley.com/docs/your-data#no-ai)

[The full inventory](https://usegalley.com/features) is longer than this. Nothing is held back for a higher tier, because there isn't one.

## Where Galley is *the wrong tool*

### Your plotting lives on a corkboard

Index cards, beat sheets, coloured string. Scrivener takes that seriously and I do not. Galley gives you a timeline, per-chapter synopses and stages, and stops. Its compile is also more configurable than my export menu, so if you have already built a compile format you love, mine will feel opinionated.

### You write in the document with someone else

Real-time co-writing, shared cursors, two people in one paragraph. That is Google Docs, and it is not what this is built for.

### You need to work fully offline today

Scrivener has been the gold standard there for twenty years. Galley writes offline too, and it is still Beta. The honest status is on the offline writing page rather than in a feature list.

## Questions

I’m querying agents. Does it do standard manuscript format? Yes, and it's the real convention rather than an approximation of it. Times New Roman at 12pt, double-spaced, one-inch margins, half-inch first-line indents, hash scene breaks, chapters opening a third of the way down, contact details and an approximate word count on the title page. Two versions come out of it: the full manuscript, carrying a Surname / Title / page running header for an editor about to line-edit you, and a submission package with your synopsis, bio and opening chapters in the order agents ask for them. Your book keeps its real page and its real typeface while you write. The submission copy is generated from it.

[Galley for querying writers](https://usegalley.com/for/traditional-publishing)[The querying walkthrough](https://usegalley.com/blog/galley-for-traditional-publishing)

How do I get drafts to beta readers and my editor? Share a copy makes one copy per reader, with that reader's name watermarked on every page, so if a copy turns up somewhere you know whose it was. Send it as an EPUB or a PDF they keep, or as a link that opens the book in a reader. A link takes a password and an expiry date, and you can turn it off after. Editors get a Word file, or a proofreading PDF at two pages a sheet if they're the sort who prints it and reaches for a red pen. When the edited Word document comes back, Galley imports the edits and the margin comments, each one anchored to the prose it was pointing at. Most tools import the edits and silently drop the comments, which is usually the half you paid for.

[Drafts for other people](https://usegalley.com/docs/preview-and-export#for-other-people)[Version history](https://usegalley.com/docs/revision#version-history)

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.

[Who Galley is for](https://usegalley.com/galley-for-you)[Draft milestones](https://usegalley.com/docs/revision#version-history)

## Keep reading

### Galley for traditional publishing

https://usegalley.com/blog/galley-for-traditional-publishing

### Publishing it yourself instead?

https://usegalley.com/for/self-publishing-authors

### Is Galley for you?

https://usegalley.com/galley-for-you

### Self-publishing authors

Type the last sentence, and the files are already made.

https://usegalley.com/for/self-publishing-authors

## The website can't make you feel what using Galley is like. *Thirty minutes in it can.*

[Launch Galley](https://app.usegalley.com) Opens straight into a book. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for.