Things To Avoid While Writing a Children’s Book – Children’s Book Publishing Don’ts
If you are planning on writing a children’s book as your very first book project and publishing it and fulfilling your dream of being a children’s book writer then this blog is for you.
We are going to talk about certain things to simply not do when it comes to writing a children’s book because these things are just not applicable to children’s books.
We are going to talk about specific things to avoid such as complicated language and also certain topics that should never be brought into children’s books.
We are also going to understand a few technical things that go on with children’s books and certain things to avoid in that situation.
Additionally, we will also understand the different elements and the balance you have to maintain with these elements so that your young readers can not only understand the topic but also have fun in the process.
If you are planning on becoming a children’s book writer then this is the best time for it and let us look at this data to understand why that is the case.
The children’s book market currently stands at over $15 billion globally and is expected to rise at a very stable but impressive growth rate of 6.3% CAGR and reach levels of up to $24.5 billion by 2031.
This indicates that the children’s book market globally is at a very healthy stage with authors deciding to write on various topics.
This should give you the confidence to pursue your career as a children’s book writer but also keep a few things in mind.
That is exactly why we bring you this blog that will help you not just understand what to do but most importantly understand what not to do when it comes to children’s books.
While most of these tips are rather obvious but then again it is going to help you a lot if you go through the entire blog in order to simply remind yourself of all of these important points.
Things To Avoid When Writing a Children’s Book
Avoid Complicated Language
The first and the simplest thing to remember is to avoid complicated language and understanding this is self-explanatory but we as still going to explain it to you.
You are writing for children and that means you are writing for people with a limited grasp of language and very limited vocabulary.
This means that if you include complicated language like complicated words or complicated phrases and structures of words then it will only confuse your reader.
If they are readers and they are not able to read the book then they are not able to enjoy it and it simply means their parents will not buy books like that for them again.
It is important to understand how you can keep the language simple but also get important messages across with the help of these simple languages as the carrier.
Understanding this balance can take ages but wish your hope you get the hang of it soon.
Your primary goal should not be decoding but rather engagement where you do not want the child to solve complicated problems but simply engage with the content and just enjoy the content.
Having a language that is simple to read will simply encourage the child to engage more and will provide the child more confidence to read on and this promotes independent reading and also helps with a better emotional connection and cognitive development.
If a child is able to read books from a young age, then it will have a very positive effect on their career in the future.
Avoid Improper Themes
If you are planning on writing a children’s book then you probably understand that not every topic is appropriate for children.
The very first topic you should avoid writing about is romantic relationships because mature romantic relationships and sensuality or something even more intense is totally not appropriate for children.
In addition to that, you must also try to avoid complicated romantic relationships with things like love triangles as these are simply not meant for children and might have a bad influence on their mental development.
Speaking about the bad influence on mental development, you must avoid topics that go into dark themes such as death and disease as well as abuse or murder or war and violence. While these are realities that we have to live with, children should not be subjected to these harsh realities and truths.
They should be given the time to form an understanding of their own in order to understand challenging concepts.
While you should not avoid themes such as horror and ghost stories, you should understand that you are writing for children.
That is why you should not write something explicitly horrific and if you really want to write ghost stories then you can add things like friendly ghosts and funny and comedic storylines.
You should also avoid prejudice and different kinds of stereotypes and make sure you do not include political or religious content in the kind of writing you are doing for children.
Additionally, you must also make sure that you do not turn this children’s book into a philosophical book full of complex deep philosophical debates because these are not for children.
Avoid Very Heavy Moralizing
You must understand the fact of why you are writing a children’s book and why a child is going to read that kind of a book.
The simple answer is fun and that is the primary objective of the book if it is a children’s book and of course, fun can be educational and fun can be motivational and teach children about different good things.
However, if you make the book about lecturing the child and what to do and what not to do and only put in conditioning and condescending messages then the child will lose interest in the book.
You must understand the mental situation of children and put yourself in their shoes in order to understand them.
Imagine 10-year-old Tom, he is a very good boy and he goes to school and does his homework, sleeps early and wakes up early and is generally very obedient.
Since he is doing all of that he gets 2 hours every day to do whatever he wants and he chooses to read story books and books he likes.
If he picks up your book during that time and he decides to read it only to find out that the book contains the same messaging and the same kind of lectures that he gets at school then he is empty going to put down that book and do something else.
That is why it is very important to understand how to utilise messaging when it comes to topics related to children.
Avoid One-Size-Fits-All
The thing you need to understand about writing for children is that the group “children” is not a single entity.
The group “children” consists of toddlers and above and this means that each age group has certain topics you can talk about and certain topics you cannot talk about.
This means that you are going to need a thorough assessment of the kinds of topics you are writing for children based on the age they belong to.
If you are looking to write for infants and toddlers then you need to ensure you right in the simplest language possible and even have a lot of visual stimulation in the form of images and interactive activities.
While it is understandable that these books will be read by parents to the children but then again you should make sure your language remains very simple.
You can add animals into the pictures and also shapes and sounds and colours and also happy and sad emotions and all of those basic things for infants and toddlers.
Let us now look at children a little bit older around 5 years old. If you are writing for these children then you can write about friendship and you can also write about adventure and learning different things.
And you just need to keep on adding to this list in the form of new topics such as superheroes and family dynamics as well as school life.
Avoid Only Text
One of the important things you need to avoid doing while creating your children’s books is only utilising text for it.
If you are writing for an adult then you can get away with no illustrations and it is actually going to be normal to do something like that.
However, since you are not writing for an adult and you are writing for a kid you need to have pictures along with it.
This is because the attention span of children is very low and this means that if you just have text in the children’s books then children will simply not be able to keep their attention.
That is why you need to add pictures and images and specifically illustrations in order to teach them about the different characters and the setting of the story.
If you recall books from your childhood then you are probably going to remember books with a lot of pictures because it is very hard for a child to remember or understand text without pictures and the books that have pictures become some of the most memorable things they read in their life.
Of course, it is difficult to get an illustrator and of course, you might not be an experienced artist but that is simply no excuse to not include images and pictures in your books.
If you want to include high-quality pictures and images then there are excellent AI image generators you can utilise to create pictures for your children’s books. You just have to make sure to mention that for complete transparency.
Avoid Working Alone
When you are planning on writing and publishing a children’s book and you are doing it for the first time then the entire experience can be quite challenging.
This is because this is an entirely new experience for you.
In a situation like this, you might want to write a book that captures the imagination of a child in the best way possible. You might basically want the book to feel as child-friendly as possible with enough impact that might entertain a child.
The situation can become easy for you if you have a child at home and you can include them in the process of writing the children’s book and getting their input but if you do not have a child at home then there are other options for you.
If you can then you should include people who are experts with children in the project for example you can include teachers who teach children as contributors to the project and you can also include other people such as child psychologists in the project.
These people will help you with very important details related to your book and can help you focus on different aspects and they will be especially helpful to you during the editing process of the book.
If you have a child at home then again you can take the help of child specialists in order to improve the quality of your work even more. You can also include your friends who are probably also parents in the project as well as their children as the primary critics of the work.
However, if you are comfortable then you can definitely work alone.
We hope this blog will help you with your next children’s book masterpiece and we sure hope you are definitely going to touch the hearts of a lot of young readers in the process.
If you have already written a children’s book and if you are just planning on publishing it then we are here for you.
We are Orange Publishers and we are a legacy publishing company with extensive experience in publishing children’s books.
Publishing with us is a breeze as all you have to do his to simply approach us and submit your manuscript to us and we will do the rest whether it is the book cover designing, the printing, publishing or even the copyright filing of the book and much more.
We welcome you to visit our website and check out everything we do.
