On Wednesday, March 19, 2003, at 09:12 AM, William Adams wrote:
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?--
The trade publishing houses that publish my books (Random House, HarperCollins, St. Martins, etc.) commission custom designs for the layout of each title, and are simply not interested in camera-ready copy. I've argued until I'm blue in the face, and met the same answer. One of my books was about the building of the Palomar telescope (The Perfect Machine) and I argued with HarperCollins that LaTeX was the preferred format for astronomy and that I would create camera-ready copy in any format their designer choose. The answer? Please submit your manuscript in ms-word, wordperfect, or ascii text!
I've met the same resistance from publishers like Kluwer when I've written sections for their Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers.
LyX is a wonderful tool, and TeX does wonderful typesetting for technical publications and technical publishers that accept camera-ready copy, or perhaps for self-published material. Until trade publishers catch on to the economy and quality of having authors typeset the material into camera-ready copy, LyX is actually a handicap for authors writing trade books. That said, I'm working on yet another book with LyX!
--
Ronald Florence www.18james.com
