How to write a children's book

Children's books split into fairly strict age bands, and each one sets its own rules. Board books are for ages 0 to 3 and run to a handful of words. Picture books, the classic 32-page format, target roughly ages 3 to 7. Early readers, for about 5 to 8, use simple, controlled vocabulary in short chapters. Chapter books suit 7 to 10, and middle grade 8 to 12, with longer, more developed stories.

Pick the band before you draft, because it decides your word count, your reading level and even your page count. Most first-time authors are writing a picture book, so the rest of this guide leans that way, but the same planning approach works for every category.

For a picture book, aim for around 500 words and treat 1,000 as a ceiling; many modern favourites come in well under 600. Board books are shorter still, usually under 100 words. Early readers run roughly 1,500 to 3,000 words, and chapter books from around 5,000 to 15,000. These are conventions rather than rules, but publishers and readers expect them.

Length matters more than it seems, because it drives page count and printing. A picture book is almost always 32 pages for reasons of print production, so the craft is fitting your story to that space. The picture book planner tracks your running word count against the norm for your format as you write.

Picture books are printed on large sheets folded into sections, so their page counts come in multiples of four, and almost always land at 32. After three or four pages of front matter — the half-title, title page and copyright or dedication — that leaves roughly fourteen spreads for the story itself.

The spread, two facing pages seen together, is the unit of a picture book, and the page-turn between spreads is your main tool for pacing, suspense and surprise. Plan your story beat by beat across those spreads, ending each one on a reason to turn the page. The planner above builds the standard layout for you and marks your front matter automatically.

The golden rule of picture-book writing is to let the illustrations carry what they can. Do not describe what a reader will see — a red coat, a rainy day, a cross expression — because the artwork will show it. Cutting those lines is what makes the text feel light and read aloud well.

Read every draft out loud, ideally to a child. Picture books live in the ear as much as the eye, so rhythm, repetition and a satisfying last line matter enormously. Rhyme can work beautifully but is unforgiving; if the metre limps or the rhymes feel forced, plain prose is almost always the safer choice.

If you sell a picture book to a traditional publisher, you usually do not find your own illustrator — the publisher pairs your text with an artist. So unless you illustrate yourself, you generally submit the words alone, with at most brief notes where the art is essential to the story.

If you self-publish, illustration becomes your biggest creative decision and often your biggest cost. Write a clear brief for each page describing what should appear, agree a consistent style, and budget accordingly. The per-page illustration notes in the planner above double as a starting brief you can hand to an artist.

There are two routes. Traditional publishing means submitting to agents and publishers, who handle illustration, printing and distribution but take time and are highly competitive. Self-publishing gives you full control and keeps the rights, but you commission the illustration, prepare the files and arrange printing yourself.

Children's books are a natural fit for short-run printing: they are usually full colour, often in non-standard sizes, and benefit from a physical proof before a full run. If you go the self-publishing route, our guide to how much it costs to self-publish a book breaks down the budget, and the book printing cost calculator estimates your print run so there are no surprises.