If you want a to write and traditionally publish picture books, you should follow some rules. With everything else involving rules, there will always be books that don’t fit with the following information. Many times new writers will see a book that doesn’t follow “the rules” and it’s often a successful author who can publish what they want because they’re going to sell books, no matter how many rules they break.
So what exactly is a picture book?
A picture book marries the text with the pictures, each telling the story. The words and pictures further and deepen the story as they play off each other. Of course, you can you have a wordless picture book (see a wonderful list of them here) and a picture book with no pictures (I’m looking at you B. J. Novak), but these are the exceptions. The art in picture books are essential to the story. The words tell half the story, with the pictures making up the other half. If you are an author vs an author illustrator, leave room for the art.
How many pages in a picture book?
Typically, a picture book is 32 pages in length, and written for kids between the ages of 3 and 8. They can be as long as 40 or48 pages or as short as 16 or 24 pages. Whatever the length, they will always be divisible by 4, because of how books are constructed. I’ll expand further on this in another post.
How many words in a picture book?
Currently, the sweet spot for word count is 500 or fewer. Sometimes you can push upwards of 700, but larger word counts are typically reserved for non-fiction picture books. Many people start off writing a picture book only to find out they have more than 1000 words and need to edit and cut their word count. Although the length (page spreads and word count) is important to a picture book, a good narrative is the most important.
How are picture books read?
Picture books are meant to be read aloud to children. Because they are read out loud to children, throw in some larger vocabulary words. Kids will understand from context what’s going on and they aren’t slowed down by challenging words.