Pictures can tell a thousand stories and pictures can be a very powerful medium to express your story and that is why we bring you this important picture storytelling guide.

This guide will help you understand how to utilise pictures effectively in children’s books so that you can convey your powerful message to one of the most difficult audiences out there, i.e., children.

We have decided to keep children’s picture books at the front and centre of this blog simply because it involves a lot more complexity compared to any other kind of picture book guide.

This is because there can be different kinds of picture book genres out there and these kinds of books can be about very critical topics like conflict, art, economy etc.

However, they are a different kind of illustrated storytelling simply because you are dealing with a mature audience and you can even get away with a lot of text.

The primary focus when it comes to children’s storybooks is pictures which means if you include text and other details in those stories then your highly critical audience(children) will simply lose their interest.

That is why we are only going to talk about picture books for children in this blog because that is even more difficult in a sense than any other kind of storytelling with images.

Before we go into the steps or tips of how to create such a book, we need to understand what is picture storytelling.

What Is Picture Story Telling?

Picture storytelling is simply the art of telling a story through pictures or illustrations and it is the art of understanding what kind of pictures to use at which points.

If you are planning on creating a picture book for adults on serious topics then you will not really need to think about emotions or actions or even things like lessons or morals.

But when you are creating the picture storybook for kids, you need to think of the plot as well as the position of the pictures from their perspective to understand how it will bring out their emotions.

This is not only critical but if you need the best kind of accuracy with your results then you might also want to consult a child psychologist when you are creating your picture storybook.

The subject of picture storytelling and the techniques for photographic storytelling might be different based on the type of book whether it is for children or for adults but the concept is the same in essence.

It is basically utilising pictures instead of text to showcase your ideas.

So, What Are the Types of Children’s Picture Books

There are a lot of types when it comes to children’s picture books, here are a few common types.

Folk Tales And Parables

This is probably the most traditional kind of picture book for children and they contain different fantasy characters along with amazing illustrations.

They are loved by children throughout the world and some are primarily pictures with very little text and others are pictures and text put in equally.

These picture books rely heavily on hand-drawn illustrations and showcase different stories with kings and queens and animals.

Only Pictures

These kinds of picture books are mostly for very small children and these books do not contain any kind of text because that does not make sense.

Sometimes these books will contain the usual ABCD and are called concept books and that is why if you want to create something like this then you need the best image storytelling tips because you do not have the advantage of text.

Interactive Picture Books

Interactive picture books are one of the most popular kinds of picture books for children because they contain different moving bits and pieces and pop-up elements.

If you have never tried out this kind of a book then the closest thing would be interactive greeting cards that contain sceneries that pop up.

The process of creating these books is unique.

Biography Books

Biography books are for parents who want to teach their children about different historical figures and these books follow a different kind of design logic.

The thing is, you need the very best illustrators for creating a picture book like this because you need to have a very accurate representation of the historical person in the pictures.

While illustrations are the most popular format for biography books but you can also use photographs and then you do not have to search for a very good illustrator.

It is best that you look at storytelling photography examples to get a better idea of how to use photography for biography books.

Animal Story Books

Animal storybooks are also quite popular among children and they only contain pictures of animals and might contain stories of animals.

These kinds of books are not only interesting but they are also very educational as they teach about different animals to small children and can even contain moral lessons.

These kinds of books usually contain illustrations but you can also create a book like this with photography and that is why you need very clear storytelling photography ideas in order to accomplish this task.

Art and Sketch Books

This is one of the most popular kinds of picture books and they usually do not contain stories but sometimes they do have stories along with pictures and empty sketches next to them.

Children are usually instructed to complete the sketch and fill up the colours and then move on to the next page and read the story and then colour the black and white sketch.

This Is How You Create a Picture Storybook

Select The Design

The first step in the process of how to tell a story with photography or illustrations is to look for a professional book layout designer. This is the best option if you are not confident enough.

However, if you are confident enough and you want to take care of the design yourself then the first thing to do would be to select the type of book you want to write.

And if you are sure about that then you can think about selecting the design because there are different kinds of designs based on the type of picture book you want to write.

You can choose an animal picture book or you can choose a traditional picture book with illustrations and stories. Or you can choose a picture book that helps children learn to read numbers.

There are templates specifically out for each of these kinds of picture books and if you are not sure about the layout then there is a simple thing you can do.

You can try downloading different templates that already have the layout and will act as a guideline for your picture book.

You can also get good templates from template. net and if you want to use that template directly from an app then Microsoft Word also has some good templates regarding picture books.

Select The Type of Pictures

Now that you have selected the design, we expect that you also have the story in mind along with an outline of the story.

The only important thing now is to choose a style of illustration and choose the type of pictures or illustrations you want to include in the book.

You can choose to have pictures in the form of digital art or pictures in the form of AI-generated art because that is something gaining momentum.

Or you can go the traditional way by including line drawings and old-fashioned illustrations that are usually done in watercolour and are quite appealing to children.

We would suggest you to stick with watercolour and keep it classic because it does not really make sense to include realistic pictures taken from a professional camera or AI art.

Select The Specifics

Now that you have selected the type of picture book as well as the type of pictures and the templates, there is still something important you need to do before you get down to the illustrations.

We are talking about the specifics which means you need to create an outline for the length of the text.

• When we talk about a picture book the length should not be more than 300 words because your audience simply does not have the patience to read or maybe they can’t read because they are too little.
• And along with that you also need to set the page count because picture books are usually 32 pages but then again you can reduce the number of pages if you are writing for very small children.
• After that, we come to the trim size. The accepted trims in the industry are-
• 8 x 8 square
• 8 x 10
• 5 x 5 to 10 x 10

Apart from that, if you decide to create a children’s book then you must forget paperbacks exist and always choose hardcover because your audience is not the most careful bunch when it comes to taking care of delicate paperbacks.

Tips For Creating a Picture Book

Focus On Pictures

Sometimes picture book authors make the mistake of focusing on the book cover design as well as other aspects but the primary focus should be on the content which is the pictures.

You must always look at the pictures from the point of view of your little audience and think about how they are going to react to the pictures.

It is even better if you have a child at home so that you can essentially ask your child to peer review the work before you publish it.

Try Avoiding Photographs

The second thing you must keep in mind is that it is not really wise to use photographs for children’s books because children do not like realistic photographs.

Children are into cartoonistic illustrations that highlight things like colours and expressions and other important details.

If you plan on using photographs then you must choreograph those photographs in a certain way that is attractive and applicable for a child audience with a lot of colours and a lot of fun.

Try Including Lessons and Morals

Publishing a children’s book is a much bigger achievement than publishing any other kind of book and it is because you are not only publishing something fun but you are shaping society.

That is why, if you are planning on writing children’s books, always try to include important lessons of honesty and kindness and important morals in the stories so that these stories can shape their minds in a good way.

We hope this blog will help you create the perfect picture book for your tiny human audiences so that they can not only enjoy the book but also learn something important.

And if you have the manuscript ready for such a picture book and you want to publish it then we are here for you.

We are Orange Publishers and we are the fastest-growing publishing company in India and all our operations are in-house.

This means you can maintain tight control over the quality of the print if you publish with us and you can oversee every step of the process.

We do everything from book cover designing to printing as well as publishing and we even take care of the copyright.

We publish all the common fiction and non-fiction genres of books, including children’s books and we will help you publish the perfect children’s picture book.

Common Picture Book FAQs

How do you make a picture tell a story?

If you want to make a picture tell a story in the context of a picture book then you need to understand the audience in the first place.

This is because if your audience are children then you need to think of it from their perspective and that picture should be full of vibrancy and colour and easy enough for them to understand.

If you want to create a picture book for adults then you need to utilise a picture that goes with the theme of the book.

We would love to create a whole new blog for you just so we can discuss this topic and we would love to hear about it in the comments whether you would like such a blog.

What is storytelling pictures?

The thing is quite self-explanatory because storytelling pictures is just utilising pictures to tell a certain story and these pictures can be in progression.

You can think of it like comic books because if you pick up any comic book then you are going to see the pictures progress one scene after another.

That is how you do storytelling with pictures.

Things can become a little bit more complicated if you are doing storytelling for children because then you need to think about it from the perspective of children to do good storytelling.

How do you write a children’s book picture book?

When it comes to children’s books, you need to keep in mind what kind of children because there are children below the age of 6 and then they are children below the age of 10 and 12-year-olds are also considered as children.

That is why it is very important to understand your audience and that audience will help you determine the kind of book you want to write.

The smaller the child, the less the text because smaller children will simply lose interest in text. You must also keep this in mind when it comes to character building because smaller children do not have the capacity to understand complex characters. However, you can make those characters more dynamic for an older child.

You must also make sure to use a lot of pictures and only get the best illustrators.

How do I get my children’s book illustrated?

The best thing to do would be to illustrate yourself but if you do not know how to draw then you should not attempt it alone because it will take up a lot of time and the outcome might be unprofessional.

Instead, you should look for illustrators on freelancing websites as you can get a good deal when it comes to these websites.

You can hire these professionals and pay them by the project or by the hour and you can even keep an eye on their progress.

The other thing would be to look for them offline but it is going to be much more expensive and it will be difficult to find an illustrator like that.

How many pages is a kid’s picture book?

The thing about this is that there are no rules to it because you can have as many pages as you want but the industry standard is 32 pages.

When we say 32 pages, we mean everything from the cover pages to the extra pages and introductions and everything else.

However, you can make it smaller than that but we would not suggest you to make a book bigger than 32 pages for children.

You must also make sure that the book is bound in hardcover because that is usually the norm in the industry.