I'm currently writing a series of children's picture books aimed at 5-6 year olds and have got the first two out the way. The only thing is I've been looking at various sites and asking advice around how long a children's picture book should be (word count) and I'm getting a lot of conflicting advice. Some say it's 1000, others say it's 600-800 and some say it's around 500.
Does anyone have any advice on how long picture books should be?
Hi, How many words do the first two books in the series have?
Being they are picture books I'd say the 600-800 words. But each book should only have the exact number of words needed to tell the story. In one book that may be 600 words in another 900 or more.
Are your books fiction or non fiction? I believe that non- fiction have longer word counts. If you plan to self-publish the word count isn't so important, but agents and publishers talk about a 'sweet spot' word count regarding fiction picture books, which I believe is around 500-750 words. I'd recommend trying to aim for that as a ball park figure if you plan on going down that route.
It's not my area of expertise, but I'd say got to Amazon and check out other works aimed at your targeted age group. The ones I've looked at on a random sampling have more than 500 words. (I can't see a word count - I went to the Look Inside feature.)
I don't see why there should be one set word count. Individual children want different things from a book. Go with what works for your story.