When producing a book you need to start from the position of how you
are wanting to get it published. Whether a traditional 'dead tree'
book or electronic format as each has its own preferred way of
creating the raw copy. Also when dealing with any traditional
publisher you need to use what they can accept - no good doing a great
layout if they then have to tear it apart and rebuild in their
preferred software !!

Most times just a plain old word processor does all that you need
unless you really have some fancy layout in mind and then you will be
guided by whatever publishing route you take.

FWIW - I used Open Office when first laying up my novel but found that
uploading to Amazon Kindle didn't go as well as it could and it was
recommended to use MS Office after first following the layout guide on
the Amazon help pages - this worked fine. When creating the paperback
using Createspace their template also didn't work too well in Open
Office so once more was forced to use MS Office :-( Luckily I had a
copy I could use and WinXP under Virtual Box. Smashwords was less of
problem and they can take Open Office or MS Office but I'd already got
the MS Word file so sent them that - a few tweaks needed but got
there.

Since doing that I've now switched to Libre Office so will see how it
goes when doing the sequel to 'Moonbeams', and hopefully 'Moonsongs'
will arrive early next year