Start Writing Your Children’s Book

You need to understand 3 things before you start writing your children’s book:

If you have an idea for a children’s book, you may think you need to know the specific writing steps to get started first. But that would actually be wrong! If you want to save yourself a bunch of editing time, or failure as you begin to get published, you’ll need to know these three things first:

1 – What market are you writing for?

A short story with images doesn’t make your idea a children’s book. There are six different age categories of children’s books and it’s your job as the writer to know which one fits your idea best.

Although, picture books are the most common children’s book to write, not all children’s books are picture books. Make sure you know your market before you get started.

2 – What are the requirements for your age category?

Building off the first step, once you know the market you want to write for, you need to know the requirements for that category. This includes word count, intended age-group, what kind of books they’re reading, what they expect from writers, etc.

If you have a picture book and it’s only 12-pages, that’s not a picture book! That’s an idea that needs to find its story.

3 – Is your idea a good one to write about?

The last thing you need to know is whether your idea is even worth writing about! You don’t want to spend months writing a story, then another year submitting, only to find out your story was a bad idea after all! (Even if you self-publish, if it’s a bad idea, it will affect your sales.)

Instead, do your research. This is the only way to ensure you have an idea worth publishing.

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