Creating Leanpub Books
The following is a guide on how to create a book in pdf, mobi and epub format on Leanpub.
Getting Started
First create a GitHub repository which will house the markdown content for your book. In the root folder of the repository, create a manuscript folder to contain the md files for the chapters your book will have.
Adding Book Chapters
Each book chapter will have its own md file. When naming the md files, start with a number that denotes the chapter number followed by the chapter title for example, the md file for the first chapter might be named 1-first-chapter-title.md.
Adding Images
To render images you can add them to the repository and link to them relatively in the md files or you can provide an absolute url to where they are hosted on the internet.
Adding Local Images
Create a resources folder inside the manuscript folder and add the images there. The names of the images should start with a number denoting for which chapter they are for followed by what the image depicts. For example, an image showing a login form for the first chapter might be named 1-login-form.png. Use the syntax below to link to it in the md file:
Adding External Images
To render an image that's hosted elsewhere on the internet, use the syntax below:
Dealing with Gifs
Leanpub can't render gifs in pdfs so to get around this, take a screenshot of the most important frame in the gif and add it to the resources folder in the repository. Link to the screenshot image in place of where the gif was and provide a link to open the gif below the image like so:
[*click to open gif*](absolute-url-to-where-gif-is-hosted)
Add a Book.txt File
When you have finished adding the md files for the book chapters the last step will be to create a file named Book.txt inside the manuscript folder. This file tells Leanpub how to compile your book and in which order to arrange the chapters. List the file names of the md files starting with the first and ending with the last like so:
1-first-chapter-title.md
2-second-chapter-title.md
.
.
.
10-tenth-chapter-title.md
Create Unbranded Exports on LeanPub
After actioning the above steps Leanpub will now be able to generate exports for your book. Generate unbranded epub, mobi and pdf versions of your book and upload them to the Digital Ocean Space with the permissions set to publicly readable.