How to Write a Picture Book - Part 2

If you are following this series of posts, the chances are that you have already written or started writing a picture book story, or that you are thinking about writing one. And I am concentrating on improving your chances of having the book traditionally published. Traditional publishers want to make money from your book. They think they know what will be most popular with buyers and readers. What makes a best selling book for a publisher is also likely to make a self-published book well liked.

While there are industry expectations and norms, which I'll discuss in future posts, each publisher has a few preferences of their own. Part of your job as a writer who wants to be published is therefore researching publishers to discover what each one likes best - because there's no point in sending a 700 word story to a publisher who only creates books that have less than 600 words.

Analyse every picture book you can find for the same readership as your stories, 20 or 50 or more, and make notes. Make sure that most of these books have been released over the last 4 or 5 years (not as reprints of older books). It's particularly useful to hunt out the books that have at least been shortlisted for an award. In Australia, where I live, the Children's Book Council and Australian Speech Pathologists organisations have annual Book of the Year Awards, as do other bodies, and I always check out the winners, runners up and the books that nearly made the podium. These show current editors’ tastes. 

You'll quickly discover that picture books are usually 24 or 32 single page surfaces including the title and legals. Some pages can be used as flyleaves and paste-downs if the text is short.

For your research in each book, I recommend:

• Note the title
• Write out all the text with what words go on which page
• What reader age is the book most suited to? (The main character is usually portrayed about 2 years older than the expected child reader.)
• Who or what is the main character? How and on what page are they introduced? What is likable about them or what problem do they have - why do we want to follow them through the story?
• Describe what the illustrations show on each page - particularly actions. Categorise them like clips of a movie, noting if the picture is a distant shot showing the setting, a medium distance shot showing action or a close up showing emotion.
• What emotion(s) are shown on each page by the illustration or the dialogue?
• Is there something on the page that encourages or forces you to turn over to the next - it could be an illustration of someone or an animal walking out of the picture (where are they going, what will happen to them? Turn over to find out!), or someone having a problem or doing something (what are the consequences?), or are the words open ended, eg ...and then... - so we want to know what happens next.
• Count and note the total number of words 
• Note the name of the publisher
• Note the year or date of first publication

You'll discover the word count limit for each publisher, if they tolerate slang, if the text includes long or unusual 'made up words' or not, and much much more. Some publishers don't publish books with talking animals, or over 500 words, or with words that rhyme...

Each publisher has their own style of book - their own brand. No matter how famous you are as an author or illustrator, how many millions of books of yours a publisher has sold, they may still not publish you're wordless sketchbook if they consider that style to be too dissimilar to the books that they're well known for.

So, you are searching for publishers who print books ‘just like yours’ – length, style, age-range... or you will write and edit your text to suit as many publishers as possible, or you will modify your text according to which publisher you send it to. One of my unpublished stories has a platypus as a main character ...but I may change it to an otter if it is sent to American publishers who only publish stories about animals that live wild in the USA.

In Part 3 I'll start to discuss what makes a publishable story.

Enjoy your research

Peter Taylor

www.writing-for-children.com

Part 1 of this series can be found at How to Write a Picture Book - Part 1

How to Write a Picture Book - Part 1

After life ‘challenges’ in recent months, this blog is now back in focus and I look forward to posting more regularly, first by providing a series on creating picture books.

How I wish that ‘get rich quick’ internet entrepreneurs wouldn’t perpetuate the myth that picture books, because they have so few words, can be written with ease by absolutely anyone in a couple of hours.

It would be wonderful if it were true.

Published authors recognise that of all genres of book, picture books are the most fiendishly difficult to write—they’re far harder to write successfully than novels for adults or older children.

Apprentice picture book writers are usually too easily satisfied with what they have written, they create works that are not ‘industry standard' and consequently more than 95% of texts never get published. When schools ask children to write a picture book text in a week or two, they cannot expect perfection – only a starting point.

You must be as professional as the most established creators. Mem Fox and other well-known authors who sell acclaimed books by the hundreds of thousands will often have spent 3 years or more refining the text of a single 300 word book before it is sent to publishers. 50 drafts would not be uncommon. En route to completing the 190 word best-selling book Where Is The Green Sheep?, Mem spent days, hour after hour working on another draft …another draft …another draft. It wasn’t finished in a year. If you were able to tap in to authors’ thoughts after their books are finished, I know that many would be muttering ‘I am never ever going to attempt to write another picture book’ …though they may almost immediately have an irresistible idea and start writing again. Why? Because there is no greater joy than creating a book that children adore.

I've been to innumerable talks by well-published experts, read text-books on the subject, paid for courses, talked to professionals, downloaded advice from websites, paid editors for appraisals of my own stories, and more. They all try to be as helpful as possible, but coming up with the right words in the right places is still a daunting task. 

Fortunately I managed to get it right for Once a Creepy Crocodile which was Shortlisted for the ‘Book of the Year 2015’ by Australian Speech Pathologists, so I hope I will be able to shorten the length of your apprenticeship and I will concentrate on providing advice for writing for traditional publishers such as Penguin and Scholastic who get books into bricks and mortar stores, libraries and schools and who pay you money. You do not have to pay a cent to be published by this kind of ‘Traditional Publisher’.

Are you still eager to write a picture book for publication?

Relax. You have a lot to learn and research.

The publishing industry works on a different time frame to everyone else. There is never a rush and lots more goes on behind the scenes than you'd ever imagine. They will want your story this year, next year or in 5 years’ time if it’s a good story - but you only get one chance to submit it to each publisher, so it needs to be the best it can be.

If you are a writer, you do not have to find or pay for an illustrator. A publisher will want freedom to organise for your words to be illustrated by an artist of their own choice. If you are unknown, they’ll probably choose one who is famous and with loyal fans and a track record for high sales. Their aim is for your story to make them money – all decisions are commercial.

But when you have completed and perfected your story, if you know a very famous illustrator who would like to illustrate it, when you send your words you can tell the publisher that they would like to be considered.

Get used to the fact that in traditional publishing, you’ll have no input into the illustration process. This is very very VERY hard for an author to accept, but it’s how the best and most loved books are usually created. An American art director I met said that she chooses illustrators to create what no one else would imagine from the words. You must leave space in your words for the illustrator to weave their own magic.

Nina Rycroft illustrated Once a Creepy Crocodile. I didn’t see any art and we had no contact until it was finished. Then I suggested a tiny change, but the publisher didn’t allow it. Nina was probably never told and maybe doesn’t know that. But I love what she’s done and her imagination. The words at the beginning say:

Once a creepy crocodile crawled toward a river bank,

He spied a baby brolga by a bottle-brush tree,

And his tail wagged and wiggled while he winked and grinned and giggled, saying

‘Please come and join me for afternoon tea.’

‘No!’ squealed Echidna. ‘Stop!’ croaked the tree-frog.

‘Run,’ cried Koala, ‘he’ll eat you, don’t you see?’

But the brolga danced and pranced in a trance toward the water saying,

‘Tea is very tempting – thanks for choosing me.’ ... ... ...

I imagined a cunning crocodile that was scary. Nina drew the croc in a Fred Astaire pose tempting the brolga with fancy dance moves, and the brolga responding as Ginger Rogers or any ballroom dancer. And it’s absolutely wonderful.

 

I imagined all the animals running away. Nina has depicted them all having a lovely tea party at the end (spoiler alert ...except for the snake that the crocodile eats). Not too scary for little children.

Does it matter that the illustrations are not as I imagined? No! They’re superb. It’s just not ‘my story’ – it has become ‘our story’, including the art director’s story.

When self-publishers pay illustrators (illustrators need to be properly paid at a sensible hourly rate – they have mortgages and the shops they visit require real money before handing over the goods) and the writer controls what is drawn, the book never reaches its full potential.

The next post will be on the first steps in story creation…

Hoping that I can help you

Peter Taylor

www.writing-for-children.com

The New Future of Printed Books?

Have you discovered Blippar yet? http://blippar.com/  

It’s established in the UK and used by supermarkets, Cadbury, newspapers and more. You just point your smart phone loaded with the Blippar app at the poster, building, product wrapper or page and something happens (you don’t have to take a photo, tap the screen or do anything, as required when scanning one of those QR codes made up of little squares, and you don’t get taken to a landing page).

Your phone may immediately show you a building tour, give you vouchers, a video of a chunk of chocolate leaving the package and aiming towards your mouth (I made that up, I’ve no idea what happens when you aim at a Cadbury’s product – it’s getting late and I’m running low on energy), or for those people who are impatient, deliver the answers to today’s crossword. Of course, as an alternative, you could be sent to a website or provided with other useful information, if that’s the initiator’s choice. Point your phone towards a picture of a watch in an advert and automatically on screen you get shown all the colour varieties, finishes, strap designs, price and a 3D view of the product that you can explore.

And if you are enjoying your Blippar experience, tap the logo on your screen and you will have automatically Tweeted it and sent it to your Facebook followers.



Could this technology be the future of print books – hold your phone over the page and get an interaction with a character, a game, 3D tour or extra action, background information or a video of a craft technique while you still have the whole print page in view? Or hold the phone near to a book’s cover or a picture of it, or your business card, and the phone user immediately gets shown a trailer, given a buying incentive, or taken to your website or a bookstore’s site...

Count me in – I hope it’s soon in frequent use here in Australia and throughout the rest of the world.

Peter Taylor
http://www.writing-for-children.com/ 

PS I understand that at present, Blippar techno-folk build the actions as instructed by the product owners, but plans are being made to enable publishers and self-publishers to build features into their own works.