If I may step in here a minute:
Grant, your original question said you want to submit the book to a
publisher. It may be a terminology difference that you aren't aware
of, but a "publisher" and a "printer" are usually two different
businesses with different requirements.
If you're self-publishing the book, meaning that the only commercial
businesses you're dealing with are the ones who physically print and
bind the books, then the printer is the one who will tell you what
file format to use.
If you're going the more usual route of dealing with a publisher, then
you'll probably never deal with the printer at all. The publisher runs
the whole process.
The publisher first decides which of the hundreds or thousands of
submitted manuscripts they are willing to publish, based on their
judgment of how many copies they think they can sell. You may have to
submit your manuscript to several or many publishers, and you may be
turned down by most or all of them.
Assuming your manuscript is accepted and you sign a contract, the
publisher will have the draft edited. This is mostly to eliminate
spelling and grammar errors, check for misstatements of fact that
might cause lawsuits, and make sure that character names are
consistent. The editor who reads and corrects your draft doesn't need
or want any fancy formatting. [This is not necessarily true for
textbooks and the like, that may contain equations or other special
text.] They may even want plain text (.txt) files. The publisher will
tell you what format to submit.
Only after editing, corrections, and possibly reviewing will the
publisher send the manuscript to a printing company, one they select.
If the printer has specific file format requirements, the publisher
will either deal with it in-house or tell you what's needed.
The bottom line: If you're planning to work with a publisher, don't
give the format any thought at all until you have a contract, and then
just follow instructions.
--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.
Never assume anything. There are a lot of printers who don't accept
Publisher files for whatever stupid reason. I'm blessed that I have a
terrific printer who's only about two miles down the road. I've given him
a
lot of business and he's given me so good deals on my print jobs.
Talk to your printer - build a relationship from him. You will benefit
from
that.
--
JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]
Grant said:
JoAnn,
OK, I appreciate the response. I figured that most printers
could
accept many different types of format. Is there a certain one that is
better
than others? I honestly do not know anything about the whole publishing
process, but thank you again for responding.
Grant
:
You need to ask your printer what file formats he accepts and go from
there.
--
JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]
I am looking for the best book writing program that I can transfer a
drafted
novel into a book format to send to a publisher. I am getting
conflicting
responses concerning Microsoft Publisher or MS Word...
)