Paginating a picture book — what’s that?

A mini picture book primer with some highlighted terms…

Last week my agent sent me a message from a publisher she’d submitted to on my behalf. The publisher wanted me to return my manuscript paginated for a thirty-two page picture book. (For the curious out there, this isn’t the manuscript I mentioned last month.)

This was interesting. While I’ve never been asked by a publisher to do this before, pagination is something all picture book authors should consider when writing and / or illustrating.

Picture books typically are thirty-two pages long. (I’ve published two like this.) Others (three that I’ve published so far) are forty pages. While they might even run to forty-eight pages or beyond (though this doesn’t happen often), picture book pages are always divisible by eight. These groupings are called signatures. The signatures make up the book block, the part of the book bound together that is attached to the book’s cover.

Picture books can be printed in two ways: as a separate-ended picture book (with copyright and title pages, two single pages of story, and fourteen spreads [two facing pages]) or as a self-ended picture book (with copyright and title pages and twelve spreads). Separate-ended picture books have separate end papers that aren’t included in the book block. Self-ended picture books don’t have separate end pages. The end pages are part of the book block.

Are you with me so far? I tried to explain some of this to my husband, and he was very lost. :)

Usually when I draft a picture book, I space my manuscript in such a way to show a potential editor that I have thought about pagination. I’m trying to say I can see what parts of the story go together and where a page turn (a built-in pause or transition) belongs. Sometimes, if I’m writing for a particular house and I know, for example, that if the manuscript is accepted it will become a forty-page self-ended picture book, I will label the spreads (in this case sixteen). But otherwise I want to be flexible. I often don’t know if the book will be thirty-two pages or forty. If it will be self ended or separate ended. And usually publishers want to be able to come to their own conclusions about a picture book’s layout and not be told what to do by a pushy author.

(There are templates galore for all these types of picture books. The ones shown in the picture above are from Katie Dwyer and are available here.)

All that said, I really enjoyed this assignment.

When this particular publisher asked that I resubmit the manuscript with pagination for a thirty-two page book, I decided it would be best to send in both self-ended and separate-ended versions. It was good to look at my book in two different ways, to see which parts worked together and which parts needed their own space. This was a chance for me to show I’ve done my homework, am familiar with picture book structure, and have thought through the particular structure and pacing of my own book. Having two extra spreads in a separate-ended book means I can slow pacing / zoom in where I’d like. But I think the book works equally well as a self-ended book.

I took my ideas to my critique group, and they gave me fantastic feedback. The extra spreads in the separate-ended book allowed me to focus the central spread on the heart of the story. What a cool visual this could be! And their suggestions for slowing the story at the end of the self-ended version meant some tweaks earlier I hadn’t considered that overall bettered the draft.

Pagination is always a good thing to think about when drafting a picture book, even if you don’t actually make a dummy. Beyond the page turns, it’s important to check if each page has the potential for a new illustration. If it’s more of the same, that’s a good place to reexamine the text.

Picture books are truly an art form, and when a book comes together, it’s magic. (Often authors and illustrators kept apart so that the author doesn’t step on the illustrator’s vision for telling their part of the story.)

We’ll see what happens with this manuscript!

I’m curious if those of you who don’t write picture books have ever considered the structural telling / behind-the-scenes intricacies of a picture book before.