For several years, this series on writing a picture book has been available free on this site. It’s now available altogether as a 110 page pdf file, How to Write a Children’s Picture Book.
Picture Book Structure
Picture books are almost always 32 pages. The reasons for this are physical: when you fold paper, eight pages folds smoothly into what’s called a signature, while any more results in a group of pages too thick to bind nicely. In addition, the 32 pages can all be printed on a single sheet of paper, making it cost-effective. In extremely rare cases, picture books may be 16, 24, 40 or 48 pages, all multiples of eight (a signature); but 32 pages is industry standard.
Francoise Bui of Doubleday Books, says, “We’ll do a longer book if the story needs it. The most likely time is if it’s a holiday or seasonal book, that we plan to give a bigger marketing push, and it needs those extra pages to tell the story. If I’ve acquired a story I really like, and if it needs extra pages, I’ll do it.”
In my picture book, 
The Journey of Oliver K. Woodman, the illustrator, Joe Cepeda, is takes 48 pages to tell the story. The text is letters or postcards, written by someone who gives a lift to Oliver, a wooden man, then writes back to Uncle Ray to report on Oliver’s progress across the nation from South Carolina to California. There are fourteen letter for fourteen spreads. Cepeda is adding wordless spreads between each letter to show Oliver actually traveling.
So, you may see board books at 16 or 24 pages, and picture books at 32, 40 or 48 pages. But the gold standard for picture books is 32 pages.
Options for Layout
When talking about the page layout, there are two options. First, you can look at each page separately. Second, you can talk about double-page spreads; when a picture book is opened flat, the two facing pages are often illustrated as one. Thus, in a 32 page book, you would have a single page (the right hand side of the book), fifteen double-page spreads, and a single page (the left hand side of the book). Decorative end papers, which are glued to the boards, often enclose these.
In those 32 pages, there are usually “front matter” consisting of a title page, a half-title page, and a copyright page. In single pages, this may take 4-5 pages. In double-page spreads, it’s the first single page and one or two spreads. The text, then has 27-28 pages or 14 spreads, plus a last single page.
Short Story or Picture Book? Concentrating on the skeleton of the picture book may seem boring or unnecessary, but it is one of the two main differences between short stories and picture books. One mistake made by beginners is to have too many or too few pages to fit into this format. Why can’t the publisher ignore the standard page limits and just print the size book needed for a particular story? Again, the reasons are physical: the way the paper folds and standard sizes of paper for printing. Literary agent Tracey Adams, literary agent, says, “It’s definitely easiest to market a picture book meant to be the standard 32 pages.”
Order the eBook! It includes all the posts in this series. How to Write a Children’s Picture Book. $10, for Immediate Download.
Related posts:
- Picture Books: Those Confusing 32 Pages
- 33 pages
- Shakespeare Helps You Write a Better Picture Book
- Did you Write a Picture Book or Something Else?
- How to Mock-up a Picture Book
 |  Revise with confidence. |
Hi
Thank you for your posts. They have been very helpful.
It isnt clear to me from your posting of a 32 page book being standard, how many pages of text that translates into for the author. Or does it just mean that an author should aim for a book that she tells the publisher is going to be 32 pages, and they break it up. Or does she break it up herself.
Thank you
looking forward to your response
Tamar
Thanks for the question!
The picture book has 32 pages.
For the author, though, that means there will be short segments of text on each page (or double-page spread). So, the text will be short, perhaps 500-1000 words long.
If you translate that to standard manuscript pages, that’s 5 pages or less. When you send in the mss to a publisher, you send it in stand manuscript format (5 pages or so). When the text is laid out for the picture book, the editor, art director and illustrator will divide it into the segments that go on each page.
You will see me suggest that you divide your text into 14-28 segments, anticipating how it will be laid out in a picture book. That is strictly to help the author revise and polish the text. When you send in the mss, it should be in standard mss format.
Darcy
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