book-publish

Phase 5: Publishing

Formats (requires pandoc, optional calibre for MOBI):

• EPUB: pandoc drafts/ch*.md -o publish/book.epub --toc --toc-depth=2 --metadata-file=publish/metadata.yaml --css=publish/style.css
• PDF: pandoc with 6x9in geometry, mirror margins, CJK font support
• MOBI: ebook-convert book.epub book.mobi (optional, Kindle supports EPUB)
• TXT: pandoc --to plain --wrap=none
• MD: pandoc --to markdown --standalone

Metadata: publish/metadata.yaml (title, subtitle, author, lang, keywords, description).

Titles: 22+ candidates across 5 categories (descriptive, emotional, question, metaphor, provocative).

Agents: cover-designer → concepts + image prompts. marketing-expert → personas, channels, 12-week calendar, launch checklist.

Output: publish/ directory with all formats + metadata + title-candidates.md + cover/concepts.md + marketing-plan.md.

Gate: EPUB + PDF generated, metadata complete, 22+ titles, cover concepts, marketing plan.

Pre-processing

Poetry line breaks: If genre is poetry or poetry-essay, before running pandoc, prepend two trailing spaces ( ) to each non-empty line within poem sections (content under ## headings, before ### subheadings). This forces pandoc to preserve line breaks instead of merging into paragraphs.

Cover image guard: Before running pandoc, check if the cover image file referenced in metadata.yaml (typically cover.png) actually exists. If missing, temporarily remove the cover-image field from metadata, run pandoc, then restore the field. This prevents pandoc from failing when cover hasn't been generated yet.

Post-Completion

Update the project dashboard status:

node {PLUGIN_ROOT}/velith.mjs scan [project-dir] --plugin-root={PLUGIN_ROOT}