I built a Git-tracked book production pipeline

Writing a book, especially in a complex field like finance, is a significant undertaking. Beyond the core subject matter expertise, authors face a challenging production process: managing revisions, collaborating with editors, ensuring consistent formatting, and ultimately, getting the book ready for publication. For years, this process relied on endless email chains, version-numbered Word documents, and a whole lot of manual effort. But what if you could treat your book like code – leveraging the power of version control and automation? That’s exactly what I set out to do, and this article details how I built a Git-tracked book production pipeline, tailored for the specific needs of financial writing.

§The Problems with Traditional Book Production

Before diving into the solution, let’s outline the pain points of traditional book production, particularly relevant for finance books which often include complex formulas, charts, and data tables.

• Version Control Nightmare: "Final_Final_v2_edited.docx" – sound familiar? Keeping track of changes, especially with multiple contributors, is incredibly difficult. It's easy to lose track of what was changed, when, and why.
• Formatting Inconsistencies: Maintaining consistent formatting across chapters, headings, and especially financial tables can be a constant battle in word processors.
• Collaboration Headaches: Sharing drafts, receiving feedback, and integrating edits via track changes can be slow, confusing, and prone to errors.
• Lack of Reproducibility: Recreating a specific version of your manuscript can be incredibly difficult, hindering revisions or corrections.
• Complex Equations & Symbols: Finance books are rife with mathematical notation. Word processors often struggle to render these correctly and consistently.

§Enter Git & Markdown: A Better Way

The solution? Embrace the tools software developers have relied on for decades: Git for version control, and Markdown for writing. This approach offers a significant upgrade in efficiency, collaboration, and overall manuscript quality.

§Why Git?

§Git is a distributed version control system. This means:

• Complete History: Every change you make is tracked, allowing you to revert to any previous version.
• Branching & Merging: Experiment with new ideas on separate branches without affecting the main manuscript. Merge changes seamlessly when you're satisfied.
• Collaboration: Multiple authors can work on the manuscript simultaneously without overwriting each other’s changes. Platforms like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket provide powerful collaboration features.
• Backup & Disaster Recovery: Your manuscript is safely stored in the Git repository, protecting against data loss.

§Why Markdown?

Markdown is a lightweight markup language. It's designed for readability and simplicity.

• Plain Text: Markdown files are plain text, meaning they're platform-independent and will survive any software updates.
• Focus on Content: Markdown allows you to focus on writing rather than fiddling with formatting.
• Easy to Learn: The syntax is incredibly simple and intuitive.
• Convertible: Markdown can be easily converted to various formats like HTML, PDF, DOCX, and LaTeX.

§Building the Pipeline: Step-by-Step

Here's how I built my Git-tracked book production pipeline, geared towards finance content.

§1. Repository Setup:

I created a private repository on GitHub (or you can use GitLab or Bitbucket). This repository will house all the source files for my book.

§2. Directory Structure:

§A well-organized directory structure is crucial. I used the following:

§book-project/

├── chapters/ # Contains all the book chapters in Markdown │ ├── 01_introduction.md │ ├── 02_financial_markets.md │ └── ... ├── figures/ # Contains images and figures │ ├── chart_1.png │ ├── table_1.csv │ └── ... ├── references.bib # BibTeX file for citations (important for finance!) ├── style.css # Custom CSS for styling (optional) ├── Makefile # Automation script (explained later) └── README.md # Project documentation

§3. Writing in Markdown:

I wrote each chapter in Markdown. For financial content, I leveraged Markdown extensions to handle equations. I found MathJax particularly useful for rendering LaTeX-style equations within my Markdown files. For example:

§```markdown

§The Black-Scholes Model

The Black-Scholes formula calculates the theoretical price of European-style options:

§$$

C = S \cdot N(d_1) - K \cdot e^{-rT} \cdot N(d_2) $$

§Where:

• C = Call option price
• S = Current stock price
• K = Strike price
• r = Risk-free interest rate
• T = Time to expiration
• N = Cumulative standard normal distribution function
• d1 = ... (formula for d1)
• d2 = ... (formula for d2)

§4. Citations & Bibliography:

Finance books require rigorous citation. I use BibTeX to manage my references. I store all my references in a references.bib file. Then, I use a tool like pandoc (see step 6) to automatically generate a bibliography. There are various resources online, like Zotero which can help manage your citations. https://example.com/

§5. Version Control with Git:

I committed my changes frequently, with clear and concise commit messages. For example: "Add Chapter 2: Financial Markets," or "Fix typo in Black-Scholes formula." I also used branching to work on new chapters or major revisions without disrupting the main manuscript.

§6. Automation with Pandoc & Make:

This is where the pipeline truly shines. I use Pandoc – a universal document converter – to automate the process of converting Markdown to various formats. I created a Makefile to define the build process. Here's a simplified example:

§```makefile

all: pdf

§pdf:

pandoc --from markdown --to pdf --pdf-engine=xelatex --bibliography references.bib -s book.md -o book.pdf

§book.md: $(wildcard chapters/*.md)

cat $^ > book.md

§clean:

rm -f book.pdf book.md

§This Makefile does the following:

• all: pdf – Specifies that the default target is to build the PDF.
• pdf: – Defines the command to build the PDF. It uses Pandoc to convert a combined book.md file (created by concatenating all the chapter Markdown files) to PDF using the xelatex engine (important for handling complex equations) and includes the bibliography.
• book.md: $(wildcard chapters/*.md) – Creates the book.md file by concatenating all Markdown files in the chapters directory.
• clean: – Removes the generated PDF and combined Markdown file.

This allows me to simply type make in the terminal to rebuild the entire book in PDF format.

§7. LaTeX for Complex Formatting (Optional):

While Pandoc can handle many formatting needs, for highly specialized formatting requirements or complex financial tables, I sometimes use LaTeX directly. Pandoc can convert Markdown to LaTeX, which I then further customize.

§8. Collaboration with GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket:

My collaborators have access to the repository and can contribute changes through pull requests. This allows for a transparent and collaborative review process.

§Tools & Technologies

§Here's a summary of the tools I use:

• Git: Version control.
• GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket: Repository hosting and collaboration.
• Markdown: Writing format.
• Pandoc: Document conversion.
• LaTeX: Typesetting system (for advanced formatting).
• MathJax: Rendering LaTeX equations in Markdown.
• BibTeX/Zotero: Citation management. https://example.com/
• Visual Studio Code (with Markdown extensions): My preferred code editor.

§Beyond the Basics: Further Improvements

§This pipeline is a solid foundation, but there's always room for improvement:

• Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD): Automate the build process further with CI/CD tools like GitHub Actions or GitLab CI.
• Spell Checking & Grammar Checking: Integrate linters and style checkers into the pipeline.
• Automated Table of Contents Generation: Automate the generation of the table of contents.
• Custom Templates: Create custom Pandoc templates for more control over the output format.

§Disclaimer

I sometimes use affiliate links in this article. This means that if you purchase a product through one of these links, I may receive a small commission. This commission does not affect the price you pay, and it helps me to continue creating helpful content. I only recommend products that I believe are valuable and relevant to my audience.