An example of using pandoc and markdown to create pdf's ready to publish on Amazon's CreateSpace.
This framework is currently built around the creation of a pdf that will stay within the required margins presented by CreateSpace here:
https://www.createspace.com/Products/Book/InteriorPDF.jsp
This setup uses pandoc: http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/ to output the content of the book in various formats (primarily pdf).
As such, it requires pandoc to be installed on your machine.
For Mac, homebrew has an install.
brew install pandoc
That got most of it working for me.
It also uses Latex. Specifically, the XeLatex engine.
Cora and Mary has no chapter titles. Instead, I used a single '#' to denote a header - and the latex template is setup to automatically number the headers. So, I just get a big number for a chapter title in the final pdf (which is what I wanted cause of how many chapters there are).
To create the pdf, simple call:
make pdf
Your pdf should be in the out/ directory.
Check out the Makefile for other output options. Some of which have additional requirements to install.
If you hit an error, its probably because of a missing font or Latex package. You will need to modify the latex template to make it work.
The latex template used for the book can be found in:
_layouts/pdf-template.txt
Here you can customize to your heart's content. The size of the book and the margins will be something you want to consider - as well as the font and font size. I think the margins look pretty good for the 5.5 x 8.5 book size - but you may disagree. And if you want a different book size, then you probably want different margins.