tom poe <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Hi: I'm venturing into writing a book land. I'm thinking there's > probably a lot of advantages with using Lyx1.2. My general question is, > does anyone have an idea about pitfalls for exporting to other formats > for different publishers?
I've written three books with LyX, all for trade publishers. See http://www.18james.com/writing.html -- the last two books on the list and a manuscript my agent is about to circulate were written with LyX. I consider LyX a splendid tool to write books, but it has not beeh helpful with publishers, at least not with the trade publishers like HarperCollins, Random House, or St. Martins who publish my books. Some publishers of scientific texts might welcome manuscripts in LaTeX or camera-ready copy in Postscript or .pdf. Trade publishers do not accept manuscripts in any of those formats, because the art, design, and sales departments all want a crack at what they call `the package.' Trade editorial departments are equipped to accept manuscripts in ms-word, word-perfect and a few other PC proprietary formats. If you cannot deliver in one of those formats, they will ask for the text in ascii. If you insist, they will re-set the book from your pretty hardcopy. Whatever format is used for the submission, a trade publisher will always discard the author's formatting as the book is typeset in keeping with the guidelines of the book designer. The beautiful output quality of LyX/LaTeX, all the pretty foreign characters and elegance of Knuth and his successors' typesetting algorithms, is lost when a trade publisher finishes with a book. No trade publisher I've ever dealt with has heard of LyX or LaTeX. I still write books in LyX because I like to see attractive interim output, the manuscript copies that are circulated to publishers by my agent and to vetters by me look better, and I prefer a WYSIWYM text formatter that lets me concentrate on writing. (The really sad truth is that trade publishers actually prefer manuscript submissions in a monotype font with a ragged right edge -- as if it came from a typewriter. Arrgh!) -- Ronald Florence www.18james.com
