publishers/agents accepting longer PB?

ChristineJ · May 10, 2012

Hello. I'm brand new here, as you can tell by my lack of avatar, signature quotes, etc.

Is anyone aware of longer picture storybooks that have been published in the past few years? I've found agents and publishers who will look at picture books, but it's hard to tell if any of their recent PB's are longer like my stories (1500-1800 words). I don't want to waste my time sending them out to agents or publishers who are automatically going to reject them on word count.

As a mother reading aloud to an almost 6 year old, I'm a huge fan of longer picture books with more complex language that kids are ready to hear but not ready to read yet. There are plenty of older ones in the library, but my research tells me that longer picture books (or picture "storybooks") have gone out of favor with publishers as they're pushing early chapter books at the 6-8 year old crowd instead. (Oh, save me from having to read another Magic Treehouse book aloud! Nothing against Mary Pope Osbourne -- they are fantastic books for getting early readers engaged and excited about reading, but they just aren't great for reading aloud to a reader who isn't quite there yet.)

Thanks for any advice you can give!

Christine

Cyia · May 10, 2012

It's a matter of logistics. PB's come in page-sets of eight because that's how they're printed (one huge sheet with eight pages printed on it). If you go "a little" over the eight count, then the publisher's wasting money on pieces of paper that don't get used. So you have to try and go another eight-count up, which still costs the publisher more money.

You *really* need something spectacular to warrant the extra materials cost.

ChristineJ · May 10, 2012

Hi Cyia. I don't think my stories would need any more pages, just more text on each page. I've seen many books like this in the library, just not a lot published recently.

MsJudy · May 10, 2012

Yep, I think the trend has definitely been away from longer PBs. I've heard under 1000, or even under 750.

There are some smaller publishers that are exceptions. Check out Tricycle Press or Chronicle Books; I can't remember which one it was, but one of them does a fair amount of longer PBs, especially historical--both fiction and non-fiction.

But I can say that as a K/1 teacher, I almost never buy PBs over 750 words. They have to be exceptionally well-written to hold the attention of 30 little kids for that long.

ChristineJ · May 10, 2012

I can understand why they wouldn't be big sellers beyond the library market. As a mother, I'd be pretty unlikely to buy (at least at full price) a longer picture book, although I check them out of the library all the time. Kids want to hear the shorter ones over and over and over, so it's worth owning them. But by the time they're old enough to sit through the longer stories, once or twice is usually enough -- so why buy it? But, for the moment at least, I find myself drawn to writing these likely unsellable stories. Maybe magazines will be my place, although only a very small handful accept stories over 1000 words. Now that I have these particular stories out of my system, I'm moving on to MG!

MsJudy -- 30 kids in a K/1 class! I hope you have a TA. I suppose I should feel very fortunate that my kindergartener has 20 in his class, and my grade 4 has 17! We have a lot of reasons to complain about our province's education system, but class size isn't one of them.

Thanks for the suggestions.

ruecole · May 10, 2012

Hi Christine,

Are you Canadian? I think Canadian publishers may be a little more friendly towards longer "storybook" PB manuscripts. Try Orca and Tundra. I know they've put out longer PBs in the last year.

Hope that helps!

Rue

Lineykins · May 11, 2012

Hi Christine,

To be brutually honest, unless you are already a best-selling picture book author (and even if you are) you're probably wasting your time sending in a picture book manuscript of that length.

As you have observed, if you're looking at what is being published today, it's not picture books of that length. You might be better off trying to turn your current manuscript into a early reader/chapter book. Or cut cut cut to at least under 1,000 words.

I don't mean to sound discouraging, and there is always the exception to the rule. IMO it's a really tough time to try to get a picture book published, so best to give your text the best chance possible.

I've had four pbs published over the last 3 years - they have ranged from 200 to 500 words. My next book, due out next year, is only 80 words (admittedly, it is a very sparse text). I know I'm only a sample of one, but I think the books I've had published are pretty typical of what's being published as a whole, in the current environment.

All the best, and enjoy your writing.

publishers/agents accepting longer PB?

ChristineJ

Cyia

Rewriting My Destiny

ChristineJ

MsJudy

ChristineJ

ruecole

Chronic Lurker

Lineykins