Galleys

Today I’m writing about galleys. This is a really pretty picture of galleys, but they're not the kind of galleys I mean. I thought a picture of ships would be more interesting to look at than one of pieces of paper with words on them. But it’s the pieces of paper with which I am currently involved.

Galleys are proofs that the publisher and author look at to correct any errors prior to publication. The publishers lay out the manuscript in the form that eventually will be sent to the printer who prints out the actual book. They are also called galley proofs; preliminary versions of the book-to-be. Because all of this is very new to me, I decided to find out why galleys are called galleys.

In the old days, books used to be set by hand. The printers had metal type which was laid down. A printer would then set the page into metal trays where the type was actually tightened into place; these trays were called galleys. A very limited number of copies for “editing mark-up” were produced - when the corrections were received, the type would be rearranged appropriately and the final book would be printed.

Nowadays, we use computers for everything, so there are no metal trays or metal pieces of type involved as everything is done electronically. It makes me wonder what people who used to do typesetting do now – have they all switched over to computers or is somebody out there still doing things the “old way”?

A few years ago I was in Germany where I was privileged to see a printing press invented by Johannes Gutenberg. He was the one who started the whole printing revolution, one which had a huge impact on the culture of the world. His invention occurred in the middle of the 15^th Century, at the time of the Renaissance. One of the first books printed: The Bible. There are still about fifty copies of the Gutenberg Bible in existence today.

The Chinese actually developed the concept of moveable type in the 11^th century. They used wood. Metal was likely used for the first time in Korea in the 13^th century. The oldest moveable metal print book in the world is a Korean Buddhist document called Jikji which was printed in 1377. For some reason, I find these facts fascinating.

Back to galleys. That’s the stage we’re at right now – the publishers give me the galleys which they have carefully laid out, I read the manuscript, and we all look for errors that need correcting before the final book is printed. We are getting close, and I find this process to be very exciting. I actually love looking at the galleys. Some people may find it tedious work, but not me – it energizes me, and when I go over the galleys, I can feel my book coming to life. It won’t be very long until it is actually a real book, but I’m loving all the steps we have to do to make that happen.