Book Configuration Specification

André Alves Garzia
Download the eBook

Table Of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Using TOML
  3. Metadata Section
  4. Default values
  5. Title
  6. Subtitle
  7. Date
  8. Identifier
  9. Cover
  10. Language
  11. License
  12. Author Section
  13. Default values
  14. Name
  15. Bio
  16. Photo
  17. Book Section
  18. Default values
  19. Enabled
  20. Theme
  21. Frontmatter and Backmatter
  22. Chapters
  23. Important remarks
  24. Table of Contents Section
  25. Default values
  26. Prefix
  27. Label
  28. Match
  29. Important remarks
  30. Publisher Section
  31. Default values
  32. Name
  33. Bio
  34. Link
  35. Site Section
  36. Default values
  37. Enabled
  38. Theme
  39. Frontmatter, Chapters, and Backmatter
  40. Blurb
  41. Landing
  42. Download
  43. Site Actions
  44. Site labels
  45. WebMonetization Section
  46. Default values
  47. Endpoint
  48. Call To Action Section
  49. Default values
  50. cta
  51. url
  52. label
  53. Links Section
  54. Default values
  55. cta
  56. url
  57. label
  58. Using YAML
  59. Why We Prefer TOML over YAML
  60. Sample configuration using YAML
  61. Using JSON
  62. Why We Prefer TOML over JSON
  63. Sample configuration using JSON
  64. Final Remarks and Moving On

Author Section

This is used to specify all sorts of information about the book authors. The reason behind placing author information on its own section is so that it is easier to copy and paste it as you create new books. If that information was part of the metadata section, it would be too easy to make a mistake and end up copying extra data you don’t need or forgetting to copy something.

Default values

[author]
name = false
bio = false
photo = false

Exactly, by default everything is ignored, and your book has no author. You really don’t want that to be the case and should fill at least the name field.

Name

This is the name of the authors. You can use it to hold a single name, or add multiple names separated by commas. Names appear both in the eBook data and on the Website.

name = "André Alves Garzia"

Bio

This is a mini-bio about the authors. If you’re having challenges writing about yourself, check out this articles from Reedsy about How to Write a Memorable Author Bio.

Mini-bios are not included in the eBook. If you want it on the eBook, you need to write it on either the frontmatter or the backmatter yourself. This data appears only on the Website.

You can use Markdown or even some HTML on this field. Since author’s bios are usually longer than most of the other fields in the book configuration file, it is best to write them using multiple lines by using triple-double-quotes as shown in the example below.

bio = """
Andre is writer and developer. In the recent years he published books
about programming and managed a Web Literacy program in vulnerable
neighborhoods of Rio. He is a firm believer in empowerment through
technological experimentation. He lives in London with his wife, cats
and more IoT boards than he can ever put into use.
"""

Markdown will pick multiple consecutive lines of text and concatenate them in a single paragraph. To make multiple paragraphs, you need to leave a blank line between them.

Photo

This is a small photo of the authors. It needs to be placed inside the images folder, and referenced in the field with the images folder as part of it.

photo = "images/author.png"

This appears only on the Website, but since the photo is inside the images folder, you’re free to use it in a author bio chapter in your frontmatter or backmatter.

←
→