What size should your picture book be? (And other silly mistakes to avoid.)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Good Ship Illustration Episode: What Size Should Your Picture Book Be? (And Other Silly Mistakes to Avoid.)
Release Date: February 21, 2025

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Introduction

In this insightful episode of The Good Ship Illustration, hosts Helen Stephens, Katie Chappell, and Tania Willis delve into the pivotal topic of determining the appropriate size for picture books. They explore common misconceptions, offer practical advice, and share invaluable experiences to help illustrators navigate the complexities of the publishing world. The discussion not only addresses technical aspects of book sizing but also emphasizes the importance of focusing on storytelling and collaboration with publishers.

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Standard Book Sizes and Initial Concerns

The episode begins with a listener question from Pam, who inquires about standard book page sizes for illustrations and whether illustrators need to account for margins or background cropping (00:24). Helen responds passionately, expressing frustration with overemphasizing book size in the initial stages of creation.

Helen (00:53): "The most important thing is that you've got a great idea for a book... those things are so, so, so much more important than the size of the artwork."

Helen advises illustrators to focus on developing strong ideas and characters rather than fixating on precise dimensions. She emphasizes that publishers typically have preferred sizes based on practical considerations like shelf space and printing efficiency.

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Publisher Collaboration and Flexibility

The conversation shifts to the dynamics between illustrators and publishers regarding book dimensions. Helen highlights that publishers often provide standard sizes and prefer illustrators to align with these rather than insisting on specific measurements.

Helen (02:09): "If you just concentrate on the idea, get your idea on paper... That's it. So I'm not going to give you any measurements."

Tania adds that seeking guidance from art editors and directors can be beneficial, especially for new illustrators who rely on their expertise to refine compositions and layout.

Tania (05:30): "Out some different compositions. And do the art editors help your art directors help you with where the text goes in an image."

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Balancing Storytelling with Visuals

Helen underscores the importance of narrative pacing and how illustrations interact with text. She advises illustrators to thoughtfully place text to enhance the storytelling experience, using page turns to create suspense or highlight pivotal moments.

Helen (07:17): "You don't want to say you've got a surprise in the story... Turn page, turn page, page, turn."

The hosts discuss how publishers assist in optimizing the integration of text and imagery to ensure a seamless and engaging reader experience.

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Persistence in Publishing and Utilizing Competitions

Pam emphasizes Helen's encouragement for illustrators to submit their work to publishers, highlighting the benefits of professional collaboration over self-publishing.

Pam (11:54): "Just Go self publishing, they don't even worry about it. But your approach is like, no, try and get published."

Helen reinforces this by stressing that working with publishers often results in higher-quality books due to collective expertise.

Helen (12:24): "I would not make anywhere near so good picture book if I decided to self publish."

The discussion also touches on the value of entering competitions and seeking recognition through awards, which can open doors to publication and broader recognition.

Helen (14:03): "We had the Bologna Illustrators exhibition... and I think we've got one in the actual final exhibition."

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Illustrating Without Personal Experience of Children

A common concern among aspiring picture book illustrators is whether one needs to have children to create compelling children's books. The hosts debunk this myth, sharing examples of successful illustrators without children.

Helen (15:26): "If you've got a playful kind of mind... you were a child once."

They suggest alternative ways to understand children's perspectives, such as spending time with nieces or engaging in roles like nannying or teaching assistants.

Tania (16:26): "Or you could be a teaching assistant at a private primary school..."

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Practical Tips and Encouragement

Throughout the episode, the hosts provide actionable advice for illustrators:

• Focus on Ideas: Prioritize storytelling and character development over technical specifications.
• Collaborate with Publishers: Leverage the expertise of art editors and publishers to refine your work.
• Be Persistent: Continuously submit your work and remain open to feedback and revisions.
• Analyze Successful Works: Study award-winning books to understand effective storytelling and illustration techniques.
• Engage with Children Indirectly: Gain insights into children's interests and behaviors through interactions, even if you don't have children of your own.

Helen shares an anecdote about Sydney Smith, an illustrator who analyzed award-winning books with his students to teach effective storytelling through illustrations.

Helen (10:50): "He took this big pile of books in, sat them down with his students, and they all went through every book and analyzed every single page..."

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Conclusion

In wrapping up the episode, the hosts encourage illustrators to embrace collaboration, prioritize creative ideas, and remain persistent in their pursuit of publication. They also promote their online community and upcoming events, fostering a supportive environment for illustrators to grow and succeed.

Helen (19:35): "Picture book doors closed tonight. Jump in."

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Key Takeaways

• Don't Obsess Over Size Early On: Focus on developing a strong narrative and captivating characters before worrying about exact dimensions.
• Collaborate with Publishers: Utilize the expertise of publishers and art directors to refine your book's layout and design.
• Persistence is Crucial: Keep submitting your work and seek feedback to improve and increase your chances of publication.
• Illustrate Beyond Personal Experience: Engage with children through various roles or indirect interactions to inform your illustrations.
• Learn from the Best: Analyze successful picture books to understand effective storytelling and illustration techniques.

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Timestamps

• 00:24: Listener question about standard book sizes.
• 00:53: Helen emphasizes focusing on ideas over size.
• 02:09: Importance of not adhering strictly to personal size preferences.
• 05:30: Role of art editors in layout and text placement.
• 07:17: Integrating text and illustrations for effective storytelling.
• 11:54: Encouragement to submit work to publishers.
• 14:03: Success in illustration competitions.
• 15:26: Illustrating without having children.
• 16:26: Alternative ways to engage with children's perspectives.
• 10:50: Sydney Smith's approach to teaching illustration.
• 19:35: Conclusion and call to action.

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This episode serves as a comprehensive guide for illustrators seeking to publish picture books, offering both strategic advice and motivational insights to navigate the creative and publishing processes effectively.

Transcript

[Pam]

Pam asks, I have a layout question. Are there standard book page sizes I should be working at with my illustrations? Hold her back, Tanya. Do I have to leave margins or make the background slightly larger than the required finished pages to allow for any cropping, or do I work to the two exact finished page dimensions?

[Helen]

Okay, hold steady. I'm holding myself back. I'll do some deep breathing.

[Pam]

Okay? Right.

[Helen]

Okay. Yeah. The size of your artwork, your picture book idea, we always get this in the course. The first week of the course, everybody bombards us with, what size does my book have to be? And there's so much more exciting things to think about than what size your book has to be. If you really wanted to get your book down on paper, don't even think about the size of your book. This just drives me crazy. If you, if you imagine in a bookshop, that picture book wall, they're all sort of a 4ish, bit wider. They're like, they're picture book size, aren't they? Do it vaguely that size, that's all you have to think about. Don't do it like the size of a postage stamp. Don't do it like a meter by a meter. That would be crazy sort of picture book size. Because the most important thing is that you've got a great idea for a book. Your characters are really great. It entertains you. It's, there's lovely interaction between the characters. I don't know, whatever it is that's going to make your book magic, those things are so, so, so much more important than the size of the artwork. And when you take your idea to the publisher, say you've very carefully decided, my book must be this size by this size, take it to the publisher. They love the idea and everything, but they go, but you drew it a centimeter too big. I'm sorry, but you'll have to go, they're never going to do that.

[Pam]

Get out.

[Helen]

They're never going to do that. If you just concentrate on the idea, get your idea on paper, draw some thumbnails, maybe make a few pieces of sample artwork, how it might look at roughly how you imagine the size of a picture book. That's it. So I'm not going to give you any measurements.

[Pam]

If that has happened to you, though, if you've been kicked out of a publisher's for doing it a centimeter too small, please send us a message.

[Tanya]

And don't ever ask Helen anything about numbers or measurements because she goes ballistic.

[Helen]

Yeah, I can't.

[Tanya]

She can't. Calm your tits.

[Helen]

Exactly. Tiny. Calm Your tits. Calm your tits. Stop thinking about the size of your book. It drives me mad because all the other stuff is so much more important. You vaguely know what size a picture book is. Do it vaguely ish. And the thing is, even if you chose the size of a book, you saw a book in a bookshop, you thought, I love that. I want it to be that size. Then you go and have a meeting with a publisher, they love the book idea and they commission you. They might have a few sizes that they use regularly because their printer recommends these sizes. Maybe it's most cost efficient. Whatever their reasons, they might give you three dummies to choose from of the standard sizes they use, and you just pick one of those. So there's no point going in with something in your head beforehand.

[Tanya]

I think it's this thing, people feeling they have to have everything perfectly finished and ready to send in. So they go, great, we'll print it like that. But as you said, it's just the. The ideas and some of the visuals and characters. And they would probably suggest, especially for a new illustrator who, for their first project, you're going to rely on advice from your art editor, aren't you? Yeah, I think it's established. Illustrators later on know if this book is an extreme vertical and very large, or whether it's a horizontal story because it plays out that way.

[Helen]

Yeah. There are books that obviously kind of bust the regular picture book sizes. But we're back to that question we were talking about last week. If you decide your picture book is going to be about giraffes and so it must be extremely tall so you can get the whole neck in, whatever. That's a rubbish idea. Sorry. You have to think, oh, well, how big are the bookshelves in the bookshop? And if it won't fit in that picture book session where section, whereabouts in the shop is it going to go? So you have to. Well, you don't have to. You might make a fantastic, very tall book that becomes a bestseller, but it's so hard to make that happen. Your book wants to be kind of average size that fits an average bookshelf.

[Tanya]

And then they would advise on composition to make it fit, wouldn't they? Perhaps they have. Early readers are all horizontal landscape books. And that's where they would see your story fitting and they would tell you that, yeah, they.

[Helen]

They are really good at placing your book in the market. And what size would be best in the bookshop? Yeah.

[Pam]

Does the publisher ever go, okay, here's the dimensions?

[Helen]

Yeah, sometimes. Yeah, yeah. Sometimes. Usually, though more. The more normal situation is that they say, so how. How are you imagining it? Do you think landscape or portrait? What do you feel like doing? Have you got an image in your head already? Okay, right. You want it to be landscape. These are some dummies of landscape books we've done before. Do you like any of these? Usually goes like that and just try.

[Tanya]

Out some different compositions. And do the art editors help your art directors help you with where the text goes in an image. They kind of educate you about how to break up an image so that it has space for the text to breathe, integrate into the illustration a bit more.

[Helen]

You're working with a designer, so they're really good at that. So whether they're giving you a text or whether you write a text and give it to them, they will then send you some layouts. They'll say, we've roughly stuck the text. Say it's 14 spreads in your book. We've spread the text over the 14 spreads. If you want to move where any of it goes, that's all right, we can talk about that. But you have to think quite carefully about where the text is going to go. So you don't want to say you've got a surprise in the story. So let's think. What would surprise be. So they looked under the bed. Was the dog there? You don't want to go, yes, immediately on the same page. Obviously you want to save that page. Turn page, turn page, page, turn. Yeah, there he is. So you want to, like, think carefully where each sentence is going to go in the story and how, if you want to slow the story down. It's quite nice to have a sentence with a vignette, another sentence, a vignette, another a vignette, another a vignette, all on one double page spread. So that that spread takes a while to read and take it in and it slows the story down. And then you turn over and there might be something, I don't know, a chase scene. And then you might just have one line of text on one big picture. So you look at that picture quite quickly and then you turn over. But the publisher help you with all that. They're really, really good at helping sort that kind of thing out.

[Pam]

That's their literal job.

[Helen]

Exactly.

[Tanya]

So useful, the idea of actually getting yourself in front of a publisher to get that support. It's enough just to turn up with a manuscript character, some spreads. You don't have to have a full illustrated story all completed.

[Helen]

No, no. In fact, I would think it would be a bad idea to turn up with all the artwork done. Because I think they'd run about, they'd be so scared. They think, oh, they're not up for any changes. And this is not how we would have done it. So it's much better to. To have some thumbnails, a couple of not finished pieces. Cause you will definitely end up doing them again. But how you imagine they would look as finished pieces.

[Tanya]

So by, you know, showing a few bits and bobs that are not completed, you're almost signaling to them like, I'm a really flexible person and I'm open to being advised.

[Helen]

Yeah.

[Tanya]

Which makes you look like someone who would be good for them to work with.

[Helen]

Yeah.

[Tanya]

Which is super important if they really.

[Helen]

Want to put their input in it. And you should be really open to it as well, because they're so good. We were just reading our Salty stories this morning, weren't we? And I was showing the page where three of the characters are very sad. All three characters are very sad. Something bad just happened. They're very, very sad. And I'd drawn all three characters sat gloomily at a table, not speaking, just looking out of the window, looking sad. And we sent it off and Walker had a look at it. And they came back and said, actually, this is such a pivotal moment in the story. We need three sentences. A sentence per character and a sad picture per character. So first of all, it was. Bernard was very sad. And then I drew him looking out of the window and it's raining and the water's running down the window. And then Kitty was very sad and she's basically just lying face down on the sofa. And then Salty was very sad. And he's an artist, so he's. He can't finish his painting. And he's just holding his paintbrush, like, falling out of his hand, and it's dripping on the floor. And it was such a massive improvement to pause on each character's moment of sadness at one at a time. It was so, such a brilliant idea. So the publishers are expert at this and you should always listen.

[Pam]

Yeah. It's really handy, the difference it made as well. And it makes it, like, cinematic because you're, like, zooming in on one character and thinking about how sad they are. And then it's cutting to the next one.

[Helen]

Yeah.

[Pam]

And then the third one, and you.

[Helen]

Pause in the sadness for a long time because. Sentence, image, sentence image, sentence image. Rather than just one sentence and one picture. Turn the page over. That's too fast.

[Pam]

They were sad right next yeah, yeah.

[Tanya]

And if you can't get yourself in front of a publisher to help them do this for you, you've got permission to buy loads and loads of picture books and just analyze how the story works and how the pacing works with the text and the image and just do a bit of self analysis.

[Helen]

This is what Sydney Smith, the illustrator Sydney Smith was saying that he. When he decided he got a job as a tutorial teaching illustration and he decided to go and buy every. I can't remember what prize they all won a big children's book prize in America. But he bought every book that had won this prize for the, like the last 20 years. And he took this big pile of books in, sat them down with his students, and they all went through every book and analyzed every single page in the book to work out how you build up the drama, hold tension, make a book slow down, make it speed up. Brilliant idea.

[Tanya]

Such a great idea.

[Helen]

Such a brilliant idea.

[Tanya]

Can we do that?

[Pam]

Yeah, let's do that.

[Helen]

Let's do it and make a film about that.

[Pam]

It'd be so good, like the Macmillan Prize or something. What's an exciting prize to win? What's the most exciting prize as a.

[Helen]

The K. Greenaway. We could do it with the Greenaway Award.

[Pam]

We'll go on a shopping spree.

[Helen]

Yeah, let's do it.

[Pam]

Yes.

[Tanya]

So basically illustration, not it's like art history, but, you know, a version of that, isn't it?

[Helen]

Yeah.

[Pam]

Anthropology, the behavior of books and the.

[Helen]

End of this story might not be right. And I wish I could remember exactly, but I think then Sydney Smith won that award with his book.

[Tanya]

Really?

[Helen]

Yeah, I think so.

[Tanya]

Such a logical way to approach things.

[Pam]

I hope that's the correct ending to the story.

[Helen]

I hope it is. I'm pretty sure it is. I saw him talk about it at Bologna. There was a fantastic afternoon of children's book talks at Bologna put on by the New York Times. Maybe it's their prize. I can't remember. And I'm pretty sure he said he did this thing with all of his students. Then he made his picture book and it won the. I think he did. I think he did so good.

[Pam]

The other thing I was going to say that reminded me of the thing I love in the picture book course that you did, Helen, was encouraging people to actually apply, like, send your work to publishers, how to get your foot in the door, how to get your book actually published. Because my thinking it always been like, oh, it's impossible to get published. Like, what's the. Just. Just Go self publishing, they don't even worry about it. But your approach is like, no, try and get published.

[Helen]

Yeah.

[Pam]

Because then you get access to all these experts and people that their job is to design picture books.

[Helen]

I would not make anywhere near so good picture book if I decided to self publish. Because the expertise of the people you're working with is just. It's so exciting. And when you work as a team like that, you make the sum of all your brains together. Makes something way better than you. Than I could make sat alone. Yeah. No, you should just definitely send your stuff to publishers. Why not just send it? Why don't you got nothing to lose. Send it, send it.

[Tanya]

Send also gives you that day in the bookshop, doesn't it? You can just go to a bookshop for the whole day, rifle through things, take photographs of the publishers logos and details, find out who's publishing stuff that you really like and bingo, you've got your 10 favorite publishers. Then you just have to go and research the art directors and you send away. There's no real rules, are they? No, just detective work and finding out what you like.

[Helen]

Yeah. And keep sending stuff. If you don't hear from them, just send again. Just leave it a couple of months. Send again and again. I always think about that. I've said this before on the podcast maybe about how toddlers, when you're feeding a toddler, there's this rule that you've got to put present them with that item of food something like nine times before they'll eat it. It's the same with keep presenting it. Keep presenting it. And they'll go, oh, now this is familiar. Oh yeah, I remember this.

[Pam]

Oh yeah, going yuck. And then by the end they're like, exactly, exactly that.

[Tanya]

Oh, and then to competitions as well. Yeah, that's a really. That lots of. Well, lots. We had quite a few good shippers in the World Illustration Awards winners, didn't we?

[Helen]

Yeah, we had the Bologna Illustrators exhibition in the. Not the final winners, but in the shortlist we. I think we had six people in there and I think we've got one in the actual final exhibition.

[Pam]

Amazing.

[Helen]

Brilliant.

[Tanya]

And of those people, people like Charlotte Durance I think has got. Have got Book and Naomi Tipping. They are also Cambridge Illustrator MA students as well, but they've done some work on Good Ship and then gone on to do their ma and. And the books that they have submitted for competition are now being, you know, taken up as and being published as well.

[Helen]

So the Macmillan Children's Book Prize is a Great one to enter. And they've just opened up the rules now. So you don't have to be a illustration graduate to enter their picture book competition. You can. Yeah. It's for all new illustrators.

[Pam]

Much more accessible because I think it's. They're keeping up with the times, aren't they? Like, people don't all have a formal art school education and why should they even.

[Tanya]

They can't confine it just to universities. It has to be a lot more open than that, especially in picture book illustration, which attracts so many people from different backgrounds.

[Helen]

Yeah, yeah.

[Pam]

So the next question isn't a specific question from somebody, but it's something we hear a lot inside the Good Ship in the picture book course, or people thinking about doing the picture book course. But it's people worrying that, can you do a picture book if you don't have children?

[Helen]

Well, yeah, why not? You were one once. You probably remember what it was like to be one. I think for the first 10 years of my career, I didn't have a child and it was fine. Got lots of commissions, did lots of books, sold lots of books, did loads of books.

[Pam]

When you checked out, like, six books a year or something, at some point.

[Helen]

I was doing loads and loads of baby books. I probably did 40 baby books before I had my child. Wow. Totally. Of course you can. You were a child once. If you've got a playful kind of mind. And. Yeah, why not? I had nieces. I didn't spend a lot of time with them, but when I was with them, I can remember really staring at their little hands with the little dimples on the knuckles and seeing how they stand and move about and kind of absorbing it. Of course you can. Of course you can. There's lots of picture book people who don't have children. Emma Chichester Clark doesn't have children.

[Tanya]

Angela Barrett, Maurice Sendak didn't have children.

[Helen]

Apparently not. Yeah, I just found that out recently.

[Tanya]

That was about. Yeah. His Childhood Memories, which Helen has published a freebie on our website about childhood memories. And it's such a good workshop where you access, you know, your memories as a child and learn how to illustrate them. It's really a really good kind of stimulator for those ideas that you think, I can't remember me as a child. How would I get there? Well, she's got the magic key, so.

[Helen]

I think it's really useful because I think the best picture books are full of emotion, whatever. You know, they're hilarious or they're sad or, you know, they're full of emotion. Children really react to that. And I think if your book starts with drawing something that you remember, you can see that in the drawing, can't you? Do you remember when we did the one on one mentoring and Evelina Deschapland was one of our winners for the mentoring. Do you remember? And she did our childhood illustrated freebie from the website. And she did these drawings of remembering her grandma's apartment.

[Tanya]

Yeah.

[Helen]

Very, very beautiful apartment. And the way that she drew the light. And because it was memory, it was full of emotion, wasn't it? They were gorgeous.

[Tanya]

Her remembering herself in this Russian apartment lying on a sofa and the light coming through the window in a certain way. It was so atmospheric and so beautiful. I think she entered those for World Illustration awards as well. I think she placed.

[Helen]

I think they got through to the long list for Bologna as well. I'm not sure.

[Tanya]

But that. Yeah, the memory was so clear in it, I think. Even if it's just gathering some old photographs of yourself as well.

[Helen]

Yeah.

[Tanya]

As a trigger to start memories of your own childhood.

[Pam]

I found being a nanny was always helpful. I wasn't writing children's books, but just. They're funny, aren't they, children? And you can get paid to look after them if you don't have your own. If you've got loads of spare time.

[Tanya]

That's such a good idea. Or you could be a teaching assistant at a private primary school. Even if you went in and did some workshops with children at kindergarten or primary, you probably get a whole world of information out of a day or two with them.

[Helen]

It's really useful doing that, a school visit of some sort. Reading to children. You just see what they're into, what they're interested in. Like. Like you were saying this morning, lies.

[Pam]

Yeah.

[Helen]

Your daughter's really interested in lies.

[Pam]

A kid read Pinocchio and it's had an indelible. Left an indelible mark on her soul.

[Tanya]

She tried lying this morning, didn't she, for the first time.

[Pam]

Yeah. I came back into the living room and she's like, daddy was rough with me. What? And he was like, I've just been.

[Tanya]

Sitting, drinking my cup of tea.

[Pam]

I haven't.

[Helen]

She's like, so funny. They like baddies, they like lies. You. When do you hang out with children? The things they're interested in and the tiny things they're interested in. It's so interesting. Yeah. So, yeah. You don't need children to write picture books. Yeah.

[Tanya]

Don't let it stop you.

[Pam]

Also, we've got, like. It was a while ago. A couple of episodes ago, somebody was sad that they couldn't illustrate because they had children. So they could weigh that.

[Helen]

The benefit of not having children is you've got a lot more time on your hands.

[Pam]

That's true.

[Tanya]

So I think that's us for the week, isn't it?

[Pam]

Yeah.

[Helen]

Picture book doors closed tonight.

[Pam]

Jump in.

[Helen]

We have an art club on the good ship illustration Instagram at 7:00 UK time.

[Pam]

Be lovely to see you.

[Helen]

See you there.

[Tanya]

Yeah.

[Helen]

Bye.

[Tanya]

Bye, bye.