Pic. Book Question-page numbers?

My understanding is you follow normal manuscript guidelines. No page breaks, no page numbering except by manuscript page.

http://www.underdown.org/manuscript-format.htm

Seems to corroborate my inclination. It was the first hit in Google, but other sites may have different opinions.

Drachen Jager said:

My understanding is you follow normal manuscript guidelines. No page breaks, no page numbering except by manuscript page.

http://www.underdown.org/manuscript-format.htm

Seems to corroborate my inclination. It was the first hit in Google, but other sites may have different opinions.

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Yep, this.


If it's picked up by a publisher, they'll do the layout as they see fit. Definitely leave them out of submissions.

Hi Anthony,

Yes, no need to add page numbers. Though feel free to "chunk" your text (by paragraphing) if you wish.

The main thing is to write an engaging story that would appeal to that age group - and not to make it too long. The advice out there says to keep it below 1000 words, but my experience is around 500 words or less is better (I'm talking picture books aimed at the 3-6 age group).

Best of luck, and have fun.

As everyone else, no page numbers.

Good.

Some agents and editors are completely put off by writers who put in page numbers (because that's not the writer's job, and with PBs especially, editors need writers who can do their job well and leave the rest to everyone else (illustrators/editors)). And even for those who aren't completely put off, the page numbers are distracting. They break up the text and take the focus off what matters -- the story!

Good luck.

Anthony, if it makes you feel any better, for my first picture book acceptance - I submitted manuscript to the publisher with page numbering.

In my defence, I had been to a workshop on writing picture books and the presenter had said to send manuscripts in with page numbers - to show the publisher that you knew about the standard 32 pages, etc (to show you weren't a complete amateur).

Anyhows, after that first exciting phone call, I went in to meet the publishers and we discussed a few changes. During that meeting they very gently and nicely told me to not bother with the page numbers on my next draft - they (and the illustrator) would work that out.

Ooh, I'm going to disagree with the general drift here. I like to see a PB manuscript broken up into spreads. It shows you've thought about how the story will be told.

It honestly surprises me to hear that editors might be put off by breaking a PB MS up in this way. I can't think of anyone I know who would be. In fact, looking at the ten or so manuscripts we had at our last editorial meeting, they all had page numbering.

It's really quite hard, if you're not a loony, to put off a picture book editor with the formatting of your submission. I only really care about two things in that area: first, can I read what you've written? It shouldn't be in an illegible purple font. And second, where you fairly concise? Because I don't want to have to print out a 30pp sheaf of paper in order to read your 500-word story. For a novel, yeah, there are a few more rules, because I have to read so many more words, but honestly, don't sweat picture book submissions too much.

One thing I would say that's related is I am turned off by the kind of MS that specifies every element of the illustrations, because that reveals a fundamental misconception about the form.

Pehaps it's a US vs. UK thing, Torgo?

I've never heard an agent or editor in the US - and I go to a ton of conferences and read a lot of blogs - say they like to see that sort of thing. The advice is always to leave our opinion on spreads out, and to keep illustration notes to a minimum.

Smish said:

Pehaps it's a US vs. UK thing, Torgo?

I've never heard an agent or editor in the US - and I go to a ton of conferences and read a lot of blogs - say they like to see that sort of thing. The advice is always to leave our opinion on spreads out, and to keep illustration notes to a minimum.

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Could be. Seems rather precious to get sniffy about it, to be honest. Actually do keep illustration notes to a minimum, that's true both sides of the pond.

"Pehaps it's a US vs. UK thing, Torgo?

I've never heard an agent or editor in the US - and I go to a ton of conferences and read a lot of blogs - say they like to see that sort of thing. The advice is always to leave our opinion on spreads out, and to keep illustration notes to a minimum."

I sold my picture book -- with breaks between spreads -- to a major U.S. publisher, so I don't think it's a U.S. vs. British thing. I didn't actually write down page numbers. But if anyone had counted, they'd see I just happened to have enough page spreads to fill a picture book.
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Inkblot said:

"Pehaps it's a US vs. UK thing, Torgo?

I've never heard an agent or editor in the US - and I go to a ton of conferences and read a lot of blogs - say they like to see that sort of thing. The advice is always to leave our opinion on spreads out, and to keep illustration notes to a minimum."

I sold my picture book -- with breaks between spreads -- to a major U.S. publisher, so I don't think it's a U.S. vs. British thing. I didn't actually write down page numbers. But if anyone had counted, they'd see I just happened to have enough page spreads to fill a picture book.
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Well, that's odd. Me, I have no objection to numbering your spreads; if I disagree with you about how you've done it, it's not exactly hard to fix...

Unhelpful as it seems, I think the general rule is to leave out page numbers, but break up your text according to page -- 32-pages standard, or another multiple of 8. Then the editors can count the text chunks to make sure it's a proper number.

Heaven knows why they want the extra work! :-D