Galley Slave

Confidential to M.A.E.: Congratulations on your promotion!

Exciting news: my galleys came yesterday! Woo hoo!

Now, if you are the reader of this blog who answers to the name Kerri Buckley, you’re going to tell me that they aren’t galleys, because you work for a publisher that has all sorts of complex names for things that have numbers and acronyms for “page proofs” and weird bits of industry-jargon shorthand attached, and that’s fine. The rest of us will say that they are galleys and here’s why:

1. They look like the actual pages of the book, printed within a regular sheet of paper.
2. They are laid out like an actual page of the book.
3. They have the pretty font just like the actual pages of the book.
4. They have my name at the top of every left hand page, just like the actual pages of the book.
5. They have the title at the top of every right hand page, just like the actual pages of the book.
6. They have the page numbers in the upper outside corners, just like the actual pages of the book.
7. They have blank pages, just like the actual pages of the book.

In short, it looks like the actual book, and I’m going to go ahead and call it a galley, becuase it looks and quacks like one.

So, yay, my galleys came today! Woo hoo!

Yes, there were a few tears. Quoth Sailor Boy, “Um is this just hitting you now?” By “this,” he meant “that it was a real book.”

He asked me this because I kept waving the pages in his face, being all teary-eyed, and whispering, “It’s a real book! It’s a real book!”

Quoth Sailor Boy, “You saw the sample. You knew this would be what it looked like.”

Wow, so not the point. It’s a real book. Or it will be soon.