An organization called picture book summit had a series of small 10 min presentations to give people a taste of what their online conference would bike. These are notes from one of those presentations. The presentation was given by Lura Backers. Any inaccuracies are the fault of the note taker.
Q: Has your idea been done before?
– How to assess your idea and see if it’s worth writing about:
– Google it: a picture book about … to see what has been done.
– Do a keyword search on Amazon. Go to children’s books departments search by words. Categories age 3-5 & ages 6-8.
– Search only by two to three words.
– Brainstorm your details to make your ide unique.
– book; I don’t want to be a frog.
Q: Does your idea have a kid-friendly hook?
– The hook is what makes your story immediately stand out.
– Will my idea hook PB readers or are you targeting adults
– What creates the kid aspect is the characters, events in the story and how kids handle the situation? make sure your kids act like kids.
– Is my idea still too general to have a hook? i.e.: a kid that does not want to go to bed. What would make your story unique? A monster does not want to go to sleep because he thinks a child under his bed.
– You have a character see through another character’s eyes.
– The details will be what makes your book special.
Q: Can my idea support 26 pages of illustration?
– Can I develop ideas with enough actions to fill 26 pages?
– If you have a conversation between characters may not be entertaining enough.
– Does your idea to have different layers that the illustrator can embellish.
– does your idea lend itself to different scenes? Scenes can cause page turns.
– The character needs to solve its own idea.
– Different brainstorming can give you a wide variety of events.
– Is my idea too big for a picture book? Can you state the plot of your picture book in one sentence?
– is it too small of an idea for a picture book?
Q: if have a book that’s already been done. Go back to generate different aspects of how the book theme can be changed that is different from the one previously published. Do not mention the previous book in a query letter.
Want to add to the list? Please do so in the comment section of this blog.
