I’ve been doing research on systems used to produce the files that books are printed from. This wiki post gathers that research. Please add to the page or the discussion! 
If you currently or have used a publishing workflow tool in the production of a book, let me know. I want to get a sense of how these work, then look at the open tools to see if they are something I want to support, or if I should start building this in WordPress.
I didn’t know about any of these, going on a link clicking binge.
What is used for comic books? I imagine it isn’t as enterprise-y, but I have a superficial understanding of how many folks are involved in a book.
Adam Hyde’s group is working on a successor (of sorts, I think) to Booktype called PubSweet, recent post http://coko.foundation/blog.html#reimagine
GitBook GitHub - GitbookIO/gitbook: 📝 Modern documentation format and toolchain using Git and Markdown I think is completely FLO and can be run locally but gitbook.com seems to require using GitHub.
GitBook or anything + LaTeX to make look good, eg Get a clean PDF using Latex · Issue #10 · costoffreedom/costoffreedom-book · GitHub maybe generalized in GitHub - clemsos/booksuite: Toolkit for collaborative publishing
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I am far removed from that process over here, so I don’t really know. 
I think it is ancient and archaic though.
Those are good links, I’ve added them to the list.
One thing I’ve wondered about is how proficient most free tools are at creating complex layouts used specifically in travel guides, with lots of side bars, maps, asides and graphics. I haven’t seen any books creating collaboratively or on the web that have that level of complexity.
I should note that I am researching this to fix a workflow problem, rather than fixing an industry. I personally don’t read physical books, so most layout is lost on me at best, or makes a document unreadable at worst. But solving this workflow with free software can leave a big impression on a company’s bottom line, especially when they consider how they can customize a free solution to their specific needs.
wondered about is how proficient most free tools are at creating complex
layouts used specifically in travel guides, with lots of side bars,
maps, asides and graphics. I haven’t seen any books creating
collaboratively or on the web that have that level of complexity.
I think I recall reading someone advocating/showing examples that all that could be done with HTML+CSS but it could have been a dream.
Anyway, if desktop tools are a possibility, Libre Graphics Mag had complex layouts, sources seem to be at Libre Graphics magazine · GitLab … I think they used Scribus, but that may have changed issue to issue.
Also, people make books from [media]wiki sources. Not sure what state of the art is.
Also some references in How I wrote and published my novel using only open source tools and discussion in How I wrote and published my novel using only open source tools | Hacker News
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Thanks for sharing. That YC thread is a clearinghouse of tools, if one can stomach the snarky replies and tech elitism. Whenever I wonder why a simple tool for folks in publishing hasn’t been created, I can just think of the folks most likely to make it…