Why Your Picture Book Isn’t Working (Yet), And How to Fix It
John Fox
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In this session, you’ll discover:
In this insightful session, children’s book editor John Fox emphasises the critical relationship between text and illustrations, highlights the importance of specifying the correct target age group based on content complexity and word count, and shares valuable advice on building tension. Fox also explains how repetition and patterns can be effectively used in picture books to create engagement and satisfaction for young readers.
Bonus:
– 12 Key Steps to Write an Amazing Children’s Book PDF guide
Comment Below With Your Key Takeaways Or If You Have Questions About The Session.
Fabulous tips! Thank you!
Thank you, John, for your insightful session! I especially enjoyed your discussion of the misunderstanding of how difficult traditional publishing is. I’m patiently persistent, but it helps to know that it’s not easy.
Thank you for taking the time to be with us today! It is always nice to set a manuscript next to a set of valuable tips to see how we are doing. That alone is akin to having fresh eyes on our manuscripts!
Thank-you John, for a practical and insightful session on the critical relationship between text and illustrations. Your session helped to validate that I’m on the right track with certain elements, and I also need to tweak other areas—all part of my author journey! Spot-on! Thank-you!!! NGHo, Gong Ho for Books!
Thank you, John, for your insightful session! I especially enjoyed your discussion of the misunderstanding of how difficult traditional publishing is. I’m patiently persistent, but it helps to know that it’s not easy. Your reminder about the relationship between text and illustrations is key.
Dear John, thank you for your insights.
I was thinking about my first children’s picture book, Good Pixie Bad Pixie (which I’m self-publishing in September) to see whether it met all your criteria for a good book.
Luckily for me, it was edited by the multi-talented Marcy Pusey and illustrated by GetYourBookIllustrations, so the quality is definitely there.
Still working on the marketing …
This was a fun interview to watch. Key takeaways for me:
– The relationship between the words and the illustrations
– Be sure your character is failing
– Repetition–I had not heard about that before, and it makes good sense
Thank you, John, for a fascinating talk. Your insights are invaluable.
Top Tip- Keep writing! Thank you, John.
Great advice of things that I haven’t heard before. Love what you offer in your company. Thanks for the valuable tips.
This was a fun discussion and the best definition I’ve heard of what a high concept story is. John broke this down in a simple way that is easy to understand. Also, I am familiar with repetition in picture books but had not thought about this from a structural standpoint. Thanks!
This was one of the very best talks about writing for kids I have ever seen! Clear, easy to understand, helpful information from a very likeable presenter.
Thanks so much for including him in your line-up!
You’re welcome, Gail. I agree, John is amazing!
Thank you, John. This was informative and helped.
Thank you for the many great insights, John. I found your point about illustrations not being a mirror to the text, but rather a complement, or even a contrast, helpful. I also appreciated your advice about having the main character fail more than once before solving their problem. Thank you again!
I’m a traditionally published author of kid lit who has been writing since the 1990s (and I’ve won an ALA youth media award), so I do know the craft fairly well, and I must say that John’s advice is absolutely spot-on and really terrific. This is an excellent interview that’s helpful to both those who want to self-publish or go the traditional route!
John Fox broke everything down into clear and concise bits. My experience is with writing for older children, but want to write picture books. This is a great help.
Great information…new and different from what we often hear!
Thank you!!
Phenomenal content! Thank you for the freebie! 🙂
Great interview! I especially appreciated your insights on the relationship between text and illustrations, building tension and pacing. Thanks!
Lots of good information. Thank you.
Question: If you are not an author/illustrator and are trying to publish traditionally, in that case, is it not true that the writer will have no input on the illustrations?
Yes, it’s true that with most traditional publishers, the illustrator will want to do their thing with little to no input from you. But it all depends on your illustrator and how they typically work.
Thanks to John Fox for so much great information (and for the fantastic freebie!).
Trying to sign up for the pdf but it’s not clear with any subscribe buttons – can someone help?
Hi Donna, just input your name and email at https://bookfoxkids.com/newsletter to get the PDF.
Great info from John Fox. It has made me think of making some small but significant changes!
Very helpful thank you.
I appreciate your talking about starting the conflict early in the story. Ex: Hippospotamus
Really enjoyed this session! It makes sense to start the story right at the beginning and to not let your character/s solve their issues so quickly.
Thank you, John. You’ve given me so many ideas on how I can revise my current manuscript! This was great information.
A major takeaway is to ensure the character fails multiple times. What??? I understand why now. Another takeaway that he has reinforced for me is to make the illustration complement the story, not mirror it.
Thanks so much. A major takeaway is to ensure the character fails multiple times. What??? I understand why now. Another takeaway that he has reinforced for me is to make the illustration complement the story, not mirror it.
Thank you, John! I needed to hear your top tip to keep writing, and to stay fresh and marketable.
I had learned about the importance of marketing from reading comments and listening to podcasts in the beginning of developing my craft. Unfortunately, when I published the first time in an anthology it was still very new to me. Being self-conscious about finally being able to call myself a published writer prevented me from taking action and following that sound advice and new knowledge. Lesson learned!
Thank you for your comments about illustration. I am an artist. I have never thought to look at it as 26 pieces of original artwork. 🙂
Thank you for this presentation. I especially liked your advice about starting the story fast. I am revising my picture book and realized the opening was too slow and cumbersome. I also liked your advice about word counts and age groups
Thank you John, for your insights. I love the part about finding the right age group. I would like to know if you have any advice for authors like me, who want to publish bilingual books. Spanish-English or Spanish-French books?
Well done! I appreciated John’s simple yet valuable information. Some of his tips gave me a sense of direction and showed me areas I was skipping. Thanks, John!
Hi, John! Thanks for the great tips. I think I’ve done a good job in my picture book of leaving room for the illustrations to tell key parts of the story. Here’s my question: How much should I put in my manuscript about what I envision for the illustrations? I’ve put a few notes of key points that need to be shown in the artwork, but I am not sure what agents/editors want to see. (I’m looking at submitting to agents for traditional publishing.)
I would try to keep any illustration input out of the manuscript. The only reason to put something in is if you have a page without text (so you explain how the illustrations continue the story there). Or if the illustrations are communicating something that is opposite of the text.
Thank you for great insights. This was very helpful.
John Fox presented an excellent interview. The advice and information offered is extremely helpful!