I've written novels with LyX (see www.18james.com/writing.html). The book class does fine. The real problem is that unless you're self-publishing -- with which I have no experience -- you have to face the fact that trade publishers are not interested in any output from LyX. They want the manuscript in ms-word, not in LaTeX, LyX, PDF, or Postscript. They'll accept ascii text, but if you have foreign language or special characters in your text, they're lost in an ascii version.
We're glad to get manuscript from LyX ;) (but we're a composition house specializing in math, physics, &c. textbooks)
You should be able to submit a .pdf for direct printing though, unless the publisher has specific style recommendations you're unable to accomplish in LaTeX?
Let me second the suggestion of Peter Wilson's Memoir class.
William
-- William Adams, publishing specialist voice - 717-731-6707 | Fax - 717-731-6708 www.atlis.com
