Early Reader vs Picture Book

In my experience with Early Readers, the word count very much varies depending on the level of the reader you're targeting. If you're looking at one for kids around five or six who are just starting out with reading on their own, then there doesn't have to be as much text, and often the text is really large anyway. And there are usually a reasonable number of pictures, because a whole heap of unbroken text is kind of intimidating. Which is probably what you're looking at if you want your book to be a reader, going by your word count. (Although I might be wrong because it also depends on the level of the vocabulary you're using.)

It depends on what you're aiming at. If you want the text to be the dominant feature of the book, you're most likely looking at an early reader. If you want it to be equal or secondary to illustrations, then you're more likely looking at a picture book. (Generally speaking anyway, there are plenty of exceptions.) Picture books can also often double as early picture books for reading to preschoolers and as reading books for older kids learning to read. The Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems are a good example of ones that can double as early picture books/early readers. And also Dr Seuss.

The Magic School Bus books were at about that word count. They spread the text out and illustrated them.

If you're going to keep it at that word count, 7 pages, with no illustrations, you have a short story or maybe a "long" story for a kiddie magazine.

(I'm having the opposite issue. I've got one that's about twice that, so it's either cut it in half or make it an easy reader chapter book.)

Hmm. Most of my picture books start out at 2000+ words and more. Then, I cut them down looking for the core of the story. To give some examples. One that started at 4,000 words is now about 1,600. Another that started over 1,000, I have down to about 400, hooray! A key point is I am an author illustrator. Once I getthe pics going I can edit ruthlessly. Another thing is I write in my own voice. I guess my goal is to remove my voice, quite loquacious, then get that sparse language necessary for picture books.

So, maybe you need to figure out what you want from this writing? Do you want it illustrated and give much of the story telling to the artist or do you want to take more control and tell your brief story in words?

First grade teacher weighing in here:

There is a HUGE difference between an Early Reader and a picture book. A picture book is meant to be read by an adult, although many are written at a level that kids can also handle once they start reading confidently. So the language level of a picture book can range from very simple to quite complex and poetic. But long picture books, stories that would appeal to older kids, are hard to sell these days. Most of the long ones I see are things like biographies, historical sketches, or retelling of classic tales. Things that appeal to teachers, parents, librarians.

Early readers are very, very, very controlled. They only use a few kinds of words:
1) Words that are easy to sound out. fat, cat, sat
2) Words that are on the list of 100-200 most common words in the English language. These are the non-phonetic words like the, who, where. First and second graders practice these daily.
3) A few more complicated words that make sense in the story. But only a few.

Writing easy readers is very difficult. You would know if you had one, because you would have been careful not to use most of the more interesting words in your vocabulary.

So what you probably have is a possible magazine story or picture book. But the only way to know for sure would be to go to your local library, ask your librarian to help you find about thirty good picture books published in the last 5 years, and read them all. See how your story compares. You may find that what you have is a first draft that either needs a lot of pruning to become a picture book, or a lot of fleshing out to become a chapter book.

Picture books rely heavily on the pictures to tell the story while books for early readers have illustrations to put the reader at ease, but they're not technically needed to make the story work. Imagine "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" without pictures...

Also, the age you're targetting is relevant. They need to be able to read if you're writing an early reader book.

I think you're confusing yourself unnecessarily with pages. A standard manuscript page is 250 words, so you've got 8.18 pages of manuscript. But that doesn't have anything at all to do with the number of pages the finished book will be.

A book's page length is determined by the layout of the words and pictures. A picture book may have no words at all, or a couple of thousand, with the same number of pages in each. It may be for a two-year-old, or for a nine-year-old. There's a lot of variety.

As a writer, you need to be concerned with the number and difficulty of the words, and the suitability of the subject, not the page length. Is the book meant to be read to a five-year-old, or to be read by a second grader, or a fourth grader?

Picture Book publishing has shifted a lot in recent years. Barnes and Noble and Borders are driving the market, and they don't carry many PBs that would appeal to kids over the age of 6. The good news about the trend is that reading is HOT with kids these days, for many reasons, and kids are more likely to be seen reading a book than they were 20 years ago. Even in this video age. But the bad flip side of that is kids are VERY status conscious. No WAY does a third grader want to be seen reading a PB. That's for babies. Even convincing a first grader that a PB could be more advanced than a chapter book is hard. So if you think your story would appeal more to a 7-year-old, it would be wise to try growing it a little more so it could be a chapter book.

If your vocabulary and syntax are similar to Beatrix Potter, however, you may have some trouble marketing it as an "early reader." She wrote in British English 100 years ago. A modern American 6-year-old needs a lot of help to read her books. They're worth the effort, of course, but for a newcomer to get published with the same style of prose is a bit unlikely.

You really need to get a feel for what is currently being published. See if you can find something more recent that would be comparable to your book. Because otherwise you may find yourself hitting dead ends when you submit for the current market.

Beware_of_Italics said:

I learned that writing adult novels is more my thing. Writing is never 'easy,' but I think I'll leave writing for kids to the pros.

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Yeah, sometimes the only way to figure these things out is to try them all. I spent way too many years trying to write for grownups. I thought since I was one, I should try to act like one. Of course, I still had my kids' books hiding in my closet...

Best of luck with all your projects!

Beware_of_Italics said:

I've also seen this:
Easy reading picture book: 32 pages
Easy reader 48-64 pages
Early chapter book 48-64 pages (depending on the publisher)
Word count range: 800-1200

So that's 32 pages, when the approx. word count for a PB is only 500 words?
And 48+ pages for an ER?

Or are they including illustration pages? And take stories like Peter Rabbit.... no way are Beatrix Potter's stories that long even with illustrations.

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Picture Books are printed in pages of multiples of 8, it has to do with the way the books are bound. 32 is the most common number, and most economical, because 32 full color pages can be printed on one sheet. It's rare for a book to go over 32 pages and it's usually done by established writers or for seasonal stories - either way the story has to be exceptional to warrant the cost of that second page at printing time. That is NOT 32 written pages, however. That's 32 pages INCLUDING the title page, the copyright information, dedication, etc. The text for a PB needs to be flexible enough that it can be positioned to conform to the number of pages that are going to be illustrated.

Beatrix Potter is a bad example. Look for modern writers and see how their books are set up.

There are different levels and types of early readers. Picture books are meant to be read aloud to the youngest readers, and read independently by older readers. Early readers are designed for independent and instructional reading. I have written an early reader first chapter book (3 chapters - think "Frog and Toad"). It's five pages long with 1182 words. Unfortuantely, I have discovered that the houses that publish early readers like this typically want agented material only. So I am sitting on it until I find an agent, or attend a conference where I can submit to a closed house. Study different types of early readers -everything from word count to writing style, vocabulary, page breaks, dialogue, etc. and then compare what you've got and see where it fits.