PB manuscript formatting question

[chef troy]

Hi folks - apologies if I missed the answer to this elsewhere...

Let's say I've written the text for a picture book, with relatively few words on a given page. (don't worry, I know I don't hire the illustrator.) :) When I prepare the manuscript for submission to a publisher, am I supposed to actually put the words that go on each page on separate manuscript pages, or am I supposed to "fill the page" and indicate page one, two, etc., with several (finished) pages' worth of text on one manuscript page?

In other words, should my manuscript for a 28-page PB be 28 pages long (even though the illustrations aren't there), or 7 pages (just to pull a number out of the air)?

[brittanimae]

Consult The Children's Writers and Illustrators Manual. Format it exactly as indicated (it's one of the early chapters). The basics are courier new font, generally regular paragraph format (the 7-page version in your example), double spaced with an extra double space between paragraphs. There's a little wiggle room on how to do pagination, but generally each page should be one of your paragraphs with no final page numbers indicated.

GOOD LUCK and WELCOME!

[jannawrites]

Hiya chef troy!

Each PB page appears after a paragraph break in your Word document, so you double-space between them. Like this:

Sally picked Teddy up and gave him a big hug.


She felt something rough on his head.


Looking closely she saw a bald spot.


She wondered where it came from, but then she saw scissors on the floor.


Sally knew that meant her brother had cut Teddy's hair.


So your 28-page PB could very well take up just two pages in your Word doc.

[chef troy]

Okay, so if there are multiple paragraphs on a single page, they should have just one carriage return between them, like so?

Sally picked Teddy up and gave him a hug -- and what do you think happened next?
She screamed as his head swiveled by itself to face hers, his friendly brown eyes replaced by glowing red coals.

Sally ran for her life as her possessed toy sprouted fangs and roared in demonic rage.
"I never should have let that guy from Microsoft hold Teddy," she thought as she fled.

[jannawrites]

Cripes! What kinda PB you writin'? ;)

Precisely! You got it.

[chef troy]

Consult The Children's Writers and Illustrators Manual. (snip) That sounds like a very valuable book. Where can I get my hands on it? An Amazon search didn't come up with anything. Is it different from the Children's Writers and Illustrators Market?

[jannawrites]

I'm sure she meant the Market... Where'd she go? Brittani?

It'd be a great resource for you.

[MsJudy]

Another resource is to join SCBWI. I don't write PBs, myself, but I know they sent me a whole bunch of stuff about them when I joined....

[brittanimae]

Oh, uh, right--Market. It's all in the details, isn't it. Maybe that's why I don't have anything published yet. That and that I spend too much time trolling around here instead of actually writing! :D

See ya in 10,000 words (or 1000--let's be realistic).