I am writing a book, nearing publishing in both physical and e-book formats. Currently a around 200 pages and adding illustrations/photos into text, so it is a very major project. With my CC subscription set to auto renew in November, always looking for the "dump Adobe" or at a minimum maintain Photoshop/Lightroom. (Yes, I have looked at Photoshop alternatives, but invariably, you need the alternative PLUS Photoshop for what the alternative can't do...so may as well just have Photoshop.)
First, while I own Publisher, immediately ruled it out. Major oversight when released was the omission of e-book capability, requiring another program like Calibre. The Publisher user forums lit up over this, and Affinity's response three years ago was "working on it". They are famous for that phrase used during the decade delay on releasing Publisher. E-Book capability has never been added in any of the software updates.
Had very high hopes for QuarkXpress, even updating from 2017 to 2020 versions - and put up with their limited training videos. Everything went fine until I started adding photos. Yes, I appreciated their inDesign type placement box fitting they added in 2018...and the reason I upgraded. However, neither of the two types on anchors actually anchored for WYSIWYG formatting. Make changes elsewhere and the photo stays there while the text shifted pages away. Interesting no training tutorials on something that basic and I found out why when did a search as it is so convoluted. Apparently you can't do a simple place and anchor. Rather you make a second text box within the text and anchor it which then moves with the other text and maintaining wraparound. Within that second text box, you then place the photo and it moves with the dedicated text box.
It was taking (wasting) so much time, I gave up and re-imported the text into inDesign. After I am done, Quark does now import inDesign files so will play with it, but suspect will subscribe to Adobe for another year.