Determining the Size of a Children's Picture Book

When I first started writing, I thought all children’s picture books had to have 16 written pages with 16 pages of illustrations. I read that somewhere, in fact, in more than one somewhere. I would work and work to divide my book into 16 even sized pages. That rule of thumb is not actually true.

My real problem was in cutting my words back to fit on only 16 pages. My co-writing daughters often asked if maybe we could be less wordy. I tried and cut down from 2000 words to 1500 words per book. I think the number of words in a children’s book is more important than you think. Too many words and the child will lose attention. Too few words and the child will feel shorted. All of our books, except Xlibris, are geared toward early readers to grade 3.6. They need around 1500 words. We are very proud of the acceptance we are getting in the schools and libraries for our books.

If you are self published, the cost of your book will increase as the number of pages increase. I would never recommend going over a 40 page children’s picture book. In fact, I will be slimming our books down to 32 to 36 pages in the future. You need to add 6 pages into your calculation for the following pages: title, copyright, dedication, page after the last page of the story, about the author, and a blank page at the end. This varies with publisher, but is a general good rule to follow. Just remember that the total number of pages needs to be divisible by 4.

So I would recommend that you have fun with your words, make them words that others will want to read over and over again, and check with your publisher to determine the price they will set for your book at various number of pages.