| name | book-publish |
| description | Phase 5: Publishing. Convert to EPUB/PDF/MOBI/TXT/Markdown, cover design, metadata, title candidates, KDP checklist, marketing plan. |
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. illustrator → interior illustration plan (see /book-illustrate). marketing-expert → personas, channels, 12-week calendar, launch checklist.
Output: publish/ directory with all formats + metadata + title-candidates.md + cover/concepts.md + illustrations/plan.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}
