Know Your Conventions

Don't forget your stepping stones

Last week, a writing friend contacted me because her nephew has written a children's book. She’s a successful author of speculative fiction but knows nothing about picture book publication. Does he need to supply illustrations? What are the first steps he should take? 

First things first, I had to be certain that I knew what she was asking. What are the first steps he should take in beating the manuscript into shape? Or what are the first steps he should take in getting it out in front of agents or editors? It turns out that the answer was choice “c,” “all of the above.” 

In case you are wondering, the answers to the above questions are: 

For traditional publication he does not need to supply illustrations if he is not an illustrator. He’s a cellist who doesn’t draw, so the answer is a firm no. 

First steps? He should read 50-100 picture books, find a critique group, and probably join SCBWI (The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators). The latter isn’t essential, but it is a great way to hook up with people who know picture books and that’s important. 

Picture books are their own unique creature. How so? They are only 32 pages long and many are under 500 words. Most texts take advantage of page turns to surprise the reader or add suspense. The text shouldn’t provide details that can come through the illustrations. 

Those are just a few of the basic conventions of picture book writing. But picture books aren’t the only form of literature that come with conventions or special requirements. Early readers also include illustrations (still not to be provided by non-illustrators) but there are also specific requirements in terms of manuscript format and line length. In cozy mysteries, your character can’t swear and there is no on-screen sex or violence. What you might consider including is a second murder. In science fiction, you should avoid describing how your faster-than-light travel works as well as on-ship gravity. These are givens in a lot of science fiction so explaining them is just a waste of word count. 

Whether you only write essays and autofiction or you also write novels, novellas, and flash, you need to know the conventions. They will provide the steppingstones that you need to make it from the first page to the final draft. 

Does this mean that you can never break them? It depends. Your goal is to write a piece that works. Can you ignore a convention and write something that works not only for you but also for your reader? If you can, then you have your answer. 

Still, it pays to know the conventions. They can save you a lot of work and frustration especially if you are a cellist who doesn’t draw, but you are writing an illustrated book. 

Conventions also provide us with a way to categorize our work. Follow the right set of conventions and when you approach your agent with a cozy mystery, you’ll know for a fact that that is what you’ve written. 

--SueBE

Sue Bradford Edwards' is the author of over 35 books for young readers.  To find out more about her writing, visit her site and blog, One Writer's Journey.

The next session of her new course, Pitching, Querying and Submitting Your Work will begin on October 5, 2022).  Coping with rejection is one of the topics she will cover in this course.

Sue is also the instructor for  Research: Prepping to Write Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults (next session begins October 5, 2022) and Writing Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults (next session begins October 5, 2022). 

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Leave a Comment conventions, picture book writing, writing rules

Marketing Your Picture Book Once It's Published (Part 4 of Picture Book Series)

Marketing a picture book is not an easy task. There are some obstacles, like with a lot of children's books, because members of your target audience are not the ones buying the book. So you're appealing to grandparents, parents, teachers, and librarians, for example, instead of to your actual readers, like a romance author might do. Plus, picture books are more expensive to create, so even though most will be under 1000 words, your price might be higher than many novels. But! the good news is that people love picture books. They love to give books as a gift, and they love to share them with the kiddos in their lives. 

So what are some marketing strategies you can use to sell picture books? These are some that I have found TO WORK! 

1. School visits: When schools are back open in the fall, and if the policies will allow school visits again, then this is a great way to sell children's books. Parents love signed books by the author. Your best bet is to ask teachers to send home a flyer before you arrive that explains you and your books and asks parents to send in money to purchase a book. Young kids love books--they are not at the stage where they only want certain authors or characters yet, so they will love you and your book as long as you are excited about it and have a great product! 

2. Offer it as a discounted ebook, and use Kindle Unlimited if possible: Some parents and teachers want to check out a book for free or a reduced price before they buy a copy. That's understandable for new authors. Fred Olds's book series, Perky Pet Problems, has two books, The Dog and the Flea: A Tale of Two Opposites and The Cat, the Mouse, and the Neighbor's Dog: A Tale of Problem Solving. As the publisher, I have enrolled both in Kindle Unlimited, which is an Amazon program. These books are checked out every day. We do get some money for that (not much, but some!), and I can tell people read them because KU keeps track of page reads. Then, I've noticed that since these books have been checked out every day, there are more copies being sold than before. 

There's not enough space in this post to get into the intricacies of the Amazon algorithim, but the good news is that once you are showing some consistent sales, Amazon helps promote your book somewhat. And that also gets your book seen in front of new people--and all around the world. 

3. Holiday bazaars and festivals: Remember what I said above about people who like to give books as gifts? If you can take part in a holiday craft fair or bazaar and buying a table space is pretty cheap (my daughter's school did it for $25 one year), then selling picture books at these works well--especially if you can think of a "package" to go with your book. For example, my book Maggie Mae, Detective Exraordinaire: The Case of the Missing Cookies always sells well at these types of events. Jack Foster's cover is fantastic, so that draws people in, and then I created a "detective kit" for kids. It consists of an inexpensive small notebook, a fun decorated pencil, and a tiny magnifying glass. Parents can read the book to kids, and they can use the detective kit to act out (or solve a different mystery) when they are finished! I charge a few extra dollars for the "kit", and I even had some stickers that were very inexpensive that I put on the notebook that said, "This detective notebook belongs to....". 

What are some ways you've marketed a picture book? What has made you purchase one in the past? Share with us below! 

To check out the other posts in the series, you can go to this one here, which links to the others!

Margo L. Dill is a children's author and the publisher of Editor-911 Books. She lives in St. Louis, MO, with her daughter and dog. To find out more, check out www.margoldill.com .

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3 comments Margo L. Dill, picture book marketing, picture book writers, picture book writing

Teamwork: Illustrations and Text in a Picture Book

 What's great about the picture book genre is that two mediums are telling the story: the author's words and the illustrator's pictures. What picture book writers who aren't illustrators often forget is that there are two mediums telling the story. (I'm raising my hand--I used to be one of these!) How can you let the illustrations do some of the work of telling the story? Here are a few tips below. 

Tip one: Let the illustrator handle the description. 

Picture book writers are telling an entire story with a problem, solution, and character development in about 1000 words or less. There's no time for a paragraph of what grandma's living room looked like after the kids finished decorating for a surprise party, for example, but as we know, "A picture is worth 1000 words." The illustrator can draw or paint or whatever he/she does to create this scene while you, the author, get on with the problem in the story. 

In Fred Olds's book, The Cat, the Mouse, and the Neighbor's Dog, he never once describes what the cat looks like, but here she is from the illustrator's mind looking out the door and checking for the big, bad dog next door. Debut illustrator Vivian Brown created this from Fred's text, and now readers will have this picture in their mind whenever they think about the poor cat!

And when I say, "Let the illustrator handle the description," that's really what I mean. Illustrators are experts and creatives, just like writers. It is your story, but they know how to tell a story with photos, so trust them. Don't use an illustrator note unless it is extremely unclear what the illustration should entail, or you are hiring the illustrator yourself, and so you are also the art director.

Tip two: Have fun with the illustrations. 

Some of the best, award-winning picture books are the ones where the illustrator puts in some special touches throughout the book that might not be in the text. Maybe the main character always has a shoe untied in the illustrations. Maybe the clouds in the sky are forming words or pictures that aren't mentioned in the text. Maybe there's a dog or cat or alien in several scenes hiding out until it's time for their appearance in the text. Now if you have something like this that is crucial to the story, and it's not in your text--then you put an illustrator's note. It's as simple as this: (Illustrator's note: In each scene from page 6 to 16, there's an alien hiding out before he makes his apperance on page 18.) 

Tip three: Even if you are a writer, study other books for the illustrations. 

Peter Brown is one of my favorite picture book writers and illustrators. His book, Mr. Tiger Goes Wild, is one of my family's favorites! This is a true masterpiece of how the illustrations and text go together. There are few words, so a lot of the storytelling is told through his drawings. This is one of thousands of books out there that you might be drawn to. But here are some questions to ask yourself as a writer, thinking about illustrations for your picture book while you are studying others that have done it successfully:

• What part of the story is told in text?
• What part is told in illustrations?
• Could you understand one without the other?
• Do I like the way this author's and illustrator's work goes together? Why or why not?
• What is my eye drawn to in the illustrations and why?
• What is my ear drawn to in the text and why?
• Is this a good book to be read out loud to children while they look at the illustrations? Why or why not?

We all love picture books--many of us were raised on them, and we have continued reading them to children and grandchildren. Everyone is not meant to write one though. It's not easy! (See post one and two.) And before you push "publish" or send this manuscript in to an agent or editor, it's important to understand how the text and illustrations work together, even if you are "only" the author. And that's a huge deal! 

Margo L. Dill is a picture book writer and editor, living in St. Louis, MO. She is also the owner of Editor-911 Books. To find out more, visit her website at https://www.margoldill.com or check out Editor-911 by clicking here.  

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7 comments children's books, KidLit, Margo L. Dill, picture book writer, picture book writing

Picture Book Writing: A Different Kind of Dos and Don'ts List

There are a lot of posts and articles, conference talks and YouTube videos and classes, that tell you the dos and don'ts of picture book writing. (Click the link for one by our very own Sue Bradford Edwards!) There are a lot of rules and best practices for picture book writers, and so when I said a couple of weeks ago that I was writing about the dos and don'ts of picture book writing--you probably rolled your eyes. 

But bear with me. I want to present a different kind of dos and don'ts list--one that reaches into your writer's soul and grabs on. One that allows you to write the best book you can for our youngest readers. 

The only "rule" I'll mention before I go on to the Dos and Don'ts is this: a picture book is a story that we should be telling with pictures and words--it's so different than any of the other books we can write because we have to think about the illustrations as we write. What part of the story can the illustrations tell? 

For example, in Maggie Mae, Detective Extraordinaire: The Case of the Missing Cookies, I didn't have to describe what Maggie or Grandma look like or the kitchen or even the detective's notebook. Jack Foster did it brillantly for me with his super cute illustrations. And that's just one example of thousands I could share with you. 

Study picture books--from the bestseller lists to the new, independently-published ones, from books published fifty years ago to one published yesterday. How did the artist and the writer work together to tell the story? Figure that out. Look for patterns. Work these into your own stories.

DO 

The biggest thing I think you can do for your young readers is to work even harder than you would on a novel for adults when writing picture book text. Kids are TOUGH critics. I've talked about this before. When my daughter said that she wanted to read Finding My Place, I was terrified. (And she liked it--whew!) But besides children being tough critics and brutally honest, they deserve good literature read to them and to read themselves. As a writer for this audience, read a lot of picture books--good and bad--and get a feel for the way the words work and flow and are begging to be read aloud. Make your manuscript sing and dance. I know picture book writers who take a year to write a book (under 1000 words) because they want to get the perfect word into each and every sentence.

DON'T

Don't think you're "less" of a writer because you're a picture book writer. Don't think everyone can do it because they can't. You have 1000 words or less with some illustrations to tell a complete story with action rising to a climax, with characters whom kids can relate to, with a situation that is "picture book material," with a resolution and satisfying ending. What I like to do when I'm writing picture books is to have my young reader front and center in my mind--don't picture the parents and grandparents buying the books or the teachers reading it to their classes. While you're writing, think of a child you know who is picture book age, and write the book for her or him.

DO

Share your stories with the world. Once you've perfected it, once you've worked hard on it, once you've workshopped it or had it critiqued or professionally edited, don't let illustrations or fear (or any of the other million excuses) stop you from getting the book out there. If you can't find an agent or a publisher, then do it yourself. The publishing world is wide open right now, waiting for your well-crafted, funny or lovely, sassy or witty, cute or serious picture book. 

If you have questions about picture book writing, I'm happy to answer them in the comments below!  Or leave a couple titles of some of your favorite picture books for us to check out. And I'll be back with post 3 of this 4 post series in a few weeks. 

Until then...happy writing! 

Margo L. Dill is a published author of two picture books, Maggie Mae, Detective Extraordinaire: The Case of the Missing Cookies, and That's the Way It Always Happened (which is a story that takes place during Red Ribbon Week). She offers a picture book editing package on her editor website here. To find out more about Margo and her writing, check out her website here. 

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3 comments children's writing, Margo L. Dill, picture book writer, picture book writing, writing for kids

Learn From the Books That Move You

We have a lot of children's and YA writers that read this blog and take our classes. If you're writing for this audience (or if you have kids/grandkids), I want to tell you about an amazing picture book I read a couple years ago, and recently re-discovered while I was cleaning out my daughter's bookshelf.

Children's author, Paula Yoo, wrote a beautiful book, Twenty-two Cents, about Muhammad Yunus and his work in Bangladesh to help people borrow money, as low as 22 cents, and pay it back without huge interest rates. His inspiration came from the poverty he witnessed as a child in Bangladesh. Before he started his village bank, he was an economics professor.  Most people used the money he loaned them to start their own businesses and become self-sufficient. He is responsible for loaning more than ten billion US dollars in micro-credit and empowering people, especially women, to take care of their families and break the cycle of poverty.

Why did this book bring tears to my eyes?  I was touched by this man and his story and how Paula Yoo was able to put such difficult concepts into ideas kids could understand. The wonderful illustrations by Jamel Akib just add to the book’s beauty.

That is the thing about children's authors--they are so talented and take so much time with sentence structure, word choice, and imagery--very similar to poets. They are writing about difficult topics in terms kids can understand. Illustrators are creating works of art, and Twenty-two Cents is a perfect example of all of this.

Yoo and Yunus

When I had my blog with my critique group, we were lucky enough to have Paula Yoo write a few things about this book for a post, and I wanted to share an excerpt with you today, too. 

Paula said about her picture book:
"But in flipping through the pages, I suddenly realized how much hard work went into the making of this book. Writing a children’s picture book biography is like sculpting a statue. At first, you’re presented with a giant, heavy block of marble that you must slowly chip and chisel away in order to carve a shape out of nothing. You can’t carve a statue out of marble overnight. It takes a lot of time and patience. But if you work steadily, a shape soon emerges. . .

"After all that work, I still had to make sure there was a compelling and interesting STORY about a character that readers would root for and care about. So I re-read and revised the manuscript according to Muhammad Yunus’s emotional journey from a compassionate child to an adult activist determined to eradicate poverty from the world. How could this book about such a complicated topic (micro lending) and epic theme (battling poverty) resonate with children? If this book were a sculpture, I would now be polishing it into a high sheen with this final revision process.

"In the end, I finally held what was a very slim and compact 32-page picture book in my hands. But each word and each image represented months and even years of hard work to tell Muhammad Yunus’s life story in the best way possible. The book felt light in my hands, but I knew its topic was epic in weight. I was finally able to step back and admire the final shape that had emerged from this book."

I know you've heard that one of the best things you can do as a writer is to read. You can receive an entire workshop through reading Twenty-two Cents or other books you love. Study the language. Look at how the authors chipped away at the topic. See how they introduced characters and themes. When you read, love the story, but also pay attention to the artistry you're enjoying at your fingertips. 

Margo L. Dill is a writing instructor, editor, and children's author. Check out more at http://www.margoldill.com or sign up for her novel writing course here.

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4 comments Margo L. Dill, Paula Yoo, picture book writing, reading as a writer

Plot Don’t Preach: The Art of Picture Book Writing

When I meet new picture book writers at conferences, we often end up chatting about our work. We discuss what we’re working on, what inspired our most recent story, and why we started writing for children.

I started writing for children when I couldn’t buy the books that my nieces wanted to read. I also loved to read when I was a child – getting lost in a variety of stories. A lot of people tell me that they want to write picture books because they have lessons that children need to learn.

A word of warning? Never tell an editor that. Seriously. Don’t do it. Editors don’t want books that preach.

 Even books that teach a child a lesson need to do so in an amusing way. The trick is to tell a story that just happens to be about an important topic. That’s what Aaron Reynolds did when he wrote Nerdy Birdy.

This next paragraph is a huge spoiler. I’m going to give away the twist and everything else about Reynolds’ book so be warned.

In short, Nerdy Birdy is an extraordinarily nerdy bird. Although he longs to fit in with the cool birds, they are cold at best, mean at worse. Eventually he makes friends with the other nerdy birds who like gaming and books, just like he does. One day Vulture moves into the neighborhood. This time, it isn’t just the cool birds that are mean. The nerdy birds don’t want to be friends with the goth bird either. Nerdy Bird realizes that his friends are now being the bullies and befriends Vulture although she likes different things than he does.

Reynolds could have easily said “bullying is bad especially when victims become bullies.” He could have, but it wouldn’t have made a very good picture book. Instead he couched the lesson in a full-fledged story with a well-rounded character, a fully developed plot, and a twist. I for one didn’t guess until it happened that the nerds would become the bullies.

A likable, recognizable character pulls readers into the story. Because readers want to find out what happens next, they keep turning the pages right until the end. The lesson is still there but it is part of the story. Part of being a children’s author is trusting readers to extract the lesson on their own.

It doesn’t matter if you are writing nonfiction or fiction. It is okay to teach but if you want young readers, and editors, to pick up your work, the first thing that you need to give them is a good story.

--SueBE

Sue is the instructor for our course, Writing Nonfiction for Children and Young Adults. The next session begins on March 21, 2016.

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Leave a Comment picture book, picture book writing, plot, theme

And They Called It Manuscript Love

I’m working on a new manuscript—a picture book—and when I wrote the story, all 400 words of it, I was beside myself. Dang, I thought, isn’t this story just about the cutest picture book ever? I mean, I absolutely fell in love with this brand-spanking new manuscript, and I could not wait to show it off!

Which is pretty much exactly how I felt when my brand-spanking new puppy arrived. I saw those tiny little paws and the precious little whiskers and the adorable wagging tail, and I was totally smitten. I failed to notice a couple other things. Like the tiny little claws on the paws and the exceedingly sharp teeth beneath the precious whiskers and the not so adorable accidents from the wagging tail vicinity.

I suspect that the astute writer will see where I’m going here. To wit, as cute as my picture book story was, I might have overlooked a couple things in my first moments of manuscript love.

Did I have a conflict? Was my main character walking on to stage first? Had I established the tone from the beginning? Did I have a great hook?

And I was just warming up. I also needed to consider word choice, word count, themes and titles. Research of other picture books, similar titles, and similar concepts, too. Oh! And the color-coded system that identifies all sorts of elements! I hadn’t even broken out the first highlighter.

You see, whether I literally check off my Things To Do list or mentally check the list as I proofread, there is a process I put my work through before submitting. It’s all about sending out my best work. But this picture book—oh, it was different! I loved this picture book—it was such a cute story—and I was in a hurry to get this story going!

As I cleaned up my puppy’s latest accident, I realized that it would be a while before she was trained well enough to go out in the world, visiting friends and family. I needed more time to instill a little doggie discipline so that people would love her just as much as I do.

That, ironically, was the moment when I knew that as much as I loved my latest picture book story, it needed work before I sent it out into the world. And I wondered how many times writers fall in love with a story and rush to get a manuscript out before it’s ready. And then feel miserable when no one else (like our critique group or an agent or editor) loves the story like we do.

So I’ll rein in this love affair with my picture book and get out those highlighters. And the next time you’re tempted to dash off your words, take a moment to ask if the work is really ready. After all, love is patient, whether applied to writing—or puppies.

~Cathy C. Hall

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8 comments Cathy C. Hall, manuscript love, patience in writing, picture book writing, writing advice