A manuscript editor for novelists

The writing app that doesn't crash when your editor shows up.

Write on a clean page. Take hundreds of comments and suggested changes from your editor. Accept or reject each one with a keystroke. Your book lives in one file on your Mac, and nobody changes a word without your yes.

See how it works

Beta on macOS · no account · your book stays on your machine

Why this exists

It started with a crash.

SCHIAVINI / GALLEYROOM1

I hate writing in Word. I put up with Google Docs because it was the lesser evil.

Then I finished a 110,000-word fantasy novel and sent it to my editor. It came back covered in comments. Hundreds of them, and Google Docs kept crashing every time I tried to work through them.

So I built a room for editing. GalleyRoom loads the whole book with every comment and every suggested change, and stays fast. It runs on my Mac and keeps the book in one file. My editor and my AI helpers can suggest anything they want. Only I can change the text.

I'm editing my novel in it right now.

#

Lucas Schiavini

How it works

Everything a draft goes through, in one binder.

Pick a page from the binder. These are real screens from the edit of The Worst Party in the Realm.

Binder

▾ GalleyRoom

23 chapters
114,674 words
500+ comments filed

On the corkboard

Small things that make a long edit bearable.

Built for 500 comments

My novel has had over 500 comments filed against it. GalleyRoom keeps every one anchored to its sentence and doesn't flinch.

You have the last word

Editors and AI agents can comment and suggest. Only the author can accept a change into the prose, and every accept can be undone.

One file, on your Mac

No account and no cloud. The whole library is one folder with one SQLite file in it. Back up the folder and you've backed up everything.

Bring your Word file

Import a .docx and chapters split on the headings. Your editor's comments come along with it.

Copyedit radar

Finds dialogue-tag commas, doubled words and double spaces, and hands you each fix as a before and after you can accept.

History for every edit

Every edit, comment and chapter version is committed to git. Connect a private GitHub repo and it's pushed there too.

Cover of The Worst Party in the Realm by Lucas Schiavini

Currently on the desk

The Worst Party in the Realm

A comic fantasy novel about a group of degenerates in a land with dragons and darker things. Every chapter of it is being edited on GalleyRoom.

"Nothing is for free."
Common sayings, New Soléria
Read about the book at worstparty.com ↗

Beta

Got a book in edits?

GalleyRoom is in beta on macOS. I'm looking for a few writers in the middle of an edit who want to try it on a real manuscript and tell me what breaks.