This is a timely topic for me. I'm just beginning the writing of a technical book. I plan to target epub/mobi. My research thus far has pointed to markdown -> html -> epub/mobi. If you were going to write a technical ebook would you use markdown or an alternative?
What about markdown do you feel limits you in your writing process?
The beauty of markdown is that it’s standardized. If you find your self midway through the book and feel a need to change formats, it’s easy enough to parse and reformat.
You're right to start with your requirements. Try to get detailed, like the list @WA wrote out, then match it up with appropriate tech.
I wrote a technical book and I also wanted multiple decent-looking outputs. In my case: HTML, EPUB/mobi, screen and print PDFs. I was struggling with Markdown+pandoc+custom scripts/styles, so I switched to Asciidoc. I wrote about that process here: https://adammonsen.com/post/2122/
Here are two examples where the author used Markdown and the result was beautiful and successful (although layout for printed editions were done with extra/other tooling): http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com , http://www.craftinginterpreters.com . I'm curious if Bob would/will use Markdown for his next book. My process is different than Bob's... I didn't need literate code and I didn't want to do _any_ layout/pre/post-processing, even for print. Asciidoctor worked for this, although there were some compromises (see my links above). Print-ready layout is a lot of work, however you do it.
Is this your first book? Do you have a publisher? Will it be printed on paper? Do you have a developmental editor / proofreader / etc? Do you have a plan for what you'll do after you publish e.g. talks/promos/tour?
Contact me if you want to chat. I'm happy to share my war stories. And good luck!
- cross references and automatic tracking of figures, tables etc.
- different styles besides blockquotes such as info sections, warnings, tips
Imho, cross-referencing chapters, pages, figures, tables and the lack thereof in Markdown is the first and most important thing to check how you would like this to be solved.
