For awhile now, I've been gathering some ideas for a children's book. My question is: How do you format a manuscript for a children's book? For a novel, they say to make a page break for each chapter. But I'm not writing a chapter book, so should I be using a page break after each "page" of text is completed? What format do agents/publishers want to see? Is anyone else out there working on a children's book?
If it's a picture book, chances are each page of text is only a few sentences tops, so if I were you I'd just leave a space between each paragraph to signal page breaks. This is just stipulation; your best bet will always be to look closely at the submisison guidelines on the publisher's page. The real expert on this stuff is mammamaia. She should be by to give you a definite answer soon. If not, that's who you want to ask.
"Here I come, to save the day!" ...ok, so i'm not really underdog, but i'll see if i can help a bit, anyway... for the record, i write children's books and mentor many aspiring writers of same... ...mostly, in the same way as any other prose ms... the exception would be for picture book text, which is usually divided up into the blocks of text meant to go with the illustration for each page... ...in which case, you separate the text for each page with a line break... but it does not have to have the usual # in the center of the line, since the lines of text will in most cases not be normal paragraphs... especially if the text is rhymed and arranged as a poem... ...answered above... chapter books would of course be done like any novel ms... ... answered above... normal ms format other than the exceptions noted... i.e., 1" margins all around, double-spaced in courier new 12 pt font, standard header, first page with contact info/approx. word count at top, etc.... ...i'm working on several rhymed texts for pb's and a couple of chapter book series for slightly older kids, in partnership with a chicago publisher of healthy body/planet-themed children's books... ...feel free to email me anytime at all, if you need/want any help... love and hugs, maia maia3maia@hotmail.com
