Stefano Franchi wrote:
On Mar 4, 2005, at 6:21 AM, Juergen Spitzmueller wrote:
Well, the right publisher is the publisher that has a good reputation in your
subject.
Couldn't agree more. And in my field (philosophy, and especially history of philosophy) TeX is conspicuously absent. Which is bad, because I really think typesetting is the publisher's job not the author's. Having to submit pdf files, i.e camera-ready pages, is even worse than having to convert from LyX to Word and having a professional typesetter using an industrial strength SW package (i.e. Quark Xpress, inDEsign, etc.) to produce a "good typography" book. If given the choice (which often I am not given) I'd rather go for the latter option. Let the typesetters do typesetting!
This is possible with lyx, if the publisher provides a lyx/latex class. Then you simply
write, and latex typesets everything camera-ready with no involvement from you. Well,
you may have to wait a few minutes for the entire book to typeset before you can
mail them the pdf.
There is few publishers, if any at all, who will provide you with a lyx class. But it
doesn't have to be the publisher, it is something any latex/lyx person could do. The
publisher should really offer a discount (i.e. more pay) for a camera-ready book,
precisely because they don't have to typeset themeselves. That's a point when
negotiating the contract. They have more work to do with a word file. With a
camera ready file, all they have to do is to hand out the specs, then print.
The money saved may pay for a latex job, and the latex class can be reused
over and over for all books in the same format.
Helge Hafting
