Children’s Book Length Guidelines
By Mary Kole
Mary Kole is a former literary agent, freelance editor, writing teacher, author of Writing Irresistible Kidlit, and IP developer for major publishers, with over a decade in the publishing industry.
Children’s book length can be a confusing topic—there are always a lot of questions about the length of a children’s book manuscript. Did you know that there isn’t even one thing called a “children’s book”? There are six major categories within the children’s book market. So how are writers supposed to figure out children’s book length? Well, read on.
Breaking Down Children’s Book Length
Children’s books are incredibly specific and divided into various bands, from board books to young adult novels. All of these different audiences (which we call “categories”) come together to represent the larger market that some people call “children’s books.” Within the industry, though, writing agents and publishers would much rather you be specific. You’ve either written a “picture book” or an “early reader,” and it’s important to note that each has its own expectation for children’s book length.
Let’s break down the various categories (not “genres”) of the market, each of which have their own children’s book length. These are all of the accepted categories of children’s books and their target age groups, along with children’s book age ranges for each:
Board Book (for kids ages 0 to 3): 100 words maximum
Early Picture Book (for kids ages 0 to 3): 400 words maximum
Picture Book (for kids 3 to 5 or 5 to 7, generally): 600 words maximum
Nonfiction Picture Book (for kids ages 5 to 9): 3,000 words maximum, but between 1,000 and 2,000 words is more standard
Early Reader (for ages 5 to 7): 1,500 words maximum
Chapter Book (for ages 7 to 9): this varies a ton, as there’s a wide range, but they usually start at 4,000 words and then max out at 15,000
Young Middle Grade or MG (for ages 9 to 11): a lot of variety here as well, but generally 15,000 to 35,000 words
Middle Grade or MG (for ages 11 to 13): 35,000 words and all the way up to 65,000 words for fantasy, sci-fi, and historical
Upper Middle Grade (for readers ages 13 and 14): 80,000 words maximum, especially for fantasy/sci-fi, and historical
Young Adult or YA (for readers ages 14+ and 16+, depending on content): 80,000 words max for contemporary, humor, mystery, historical, romance, etc. 100,000 words max for fantasy, sci-fi, paranormal, etc.
New Adult (for readers ages 19+ 70,000 to 90,000 words
You’ll notice that there are a lot of categories. The major ones are board book, picture book, early reader, chapter book, middle grade, and young adult. Then there are variations for most of these.
These children’s book length rules exist in the first place because kids are developmentally capable of paying attention (and, later, reading independently) at different rates, according to their ages and skill levels.
The Reasoning Behind Children’s Book Length Guidelines
A lot of agents and publishers prefer a reasonable children’s book length within these guidelines when they’re evaluating a project. Especially in the slush pile, where competition is fierce. Novel manuscripts in the upper age ranges also tend to keep getting longer and longer in the market (though there’s obviously an upper limit to how long the “average” book can get), so the answer to the question of children’s book length changes every few years. My book, Writing Irresistible Kidlit, was published in 2012, and the middle grade and young adult word counts have already changed—not significantly, but still. The above are the current children’s book length guidelines to be aware of.
Keep in mind that historical fiction, fantasy, paranormal or sci-fi projects tend to be longer than, say, something contemporary realistic. If you have a long word count, be prepared for someone along the submission process to tell you to trim your children’s book length.
The inverse advice applies to books that are too short. You should either go down a category and adjust your audience age and protagonist age, or flesh out your story. Agents and publishers absolutely enforce a lower limit for books and reject those that are too short for their chosen categories, too. (I’ve personally seen a client’s beautiful 45k-word young adult fantasy rejected for this exact reason.)
Honing In On Children’s Book Length
Best practice if you want to write children’s books in today’s traditional market is to stick close to guidelines. Learn how to revise, trim, and streamline when you’re self-editing. (Or, if you write on the short side, how to expand intentionally and judiciously without adding fluff for the sake of it.) You can also work with a writing group or freelance editor to get writing notes, especially if you feel you’ve lost perspective on what changes you can make. (Make sure that whoever you choose to get feedback from has experience in the children’s market, as it is so specialized.)
Keep in mind that longer books represent a bigger financial risk for publishers, which is why these children’s book length guidelines exist in the first place. Editors prepare a Profit and Loss Statement to assess how much it will cost to publish a book.
All the words you’ve written eventually turn into pages and pages turn into money in terms of production costs. And when the books become longer, the publisher also spends more on production, warehousing, distribution, etc. Those books are thicker and take up more room on bookstore shelves, too, allowing those resellers to stock fewer titles for fewer potential sales.
If a manuscript surpasses the typical maximum length editors usually consider, there needs to be an exceptional reason for it. Book pitches far outside the norm of children’s book length are generally non-starters. If your novel manuscript is over 100k words, it had better have a great reason. Otherwise, you may find yourself going through yet another round of revisions.
Once you know the children’s book length that you’re aiming for, that number might help everything fall into place. In writing, it’s best to learn the writing rules first, then decide whether you want to break them. In certain categories, like picture books, you don’t have a lot of wiggle room. Don’t let your word count hamstring your publishing dreams.
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Click here to purchase Writing Irresistible Picture Books, my book on children’s picture books. This comprehensive guide is crammed with craft advice and groundbreaking original research, including a survey of 1,000 upcoming picture book deals, a breakdown of 80 modern and marketable picture book topics, and in-depth analysis of over 150 published picture books.