EPUB is not that scary

In a prior life, I worked on Kindle — specifically on content pipelines and data processing. This either excuses the fact that I had no real idea what EPUB was from a data standpoint, or makes it all the more embarrassing, since Amazon has, quite notoriously, long waged a war against EPUB and the other open e-reader formats. I will submit as my defense a certain kind of subconscious aversion to anything under that curfew. In much the same way that I have largely exited the world of fintech after Stripe — with the notable exception of fervently checking for updates about the growth and progress of FedNow. All of this is a lead-up to say: I had reason at my day job, thanks to Steph, to try generating an EPUB file from Markdown source. An idea to which I said, "Yes, how hard can it be?" Usually, when I say that, it is a prelude to disaster. But in this case, EPUB turns out to be pretty nice and simple. So I am going to drastically sand off the edges of some of the complexity, because I…