[LauraLMadsen Posts: 4 Status: Offline I love picture books!]

So far I've been adding them to my total word count. But what are your thoughts? Do speech bubbles in the illustrations need to be included?

[Donna J. Shepherd Posts: 1,074 Status: Offline Ava's Secret Tea Party WWW]

I would say words that add to the story, no matter where they are on the page, should be added to the word count.

[Anthony Posts: 67 Status: Offline You know, for kids! WWW]

I count any words that will actually appear on the page in the finished book.

[Artemesia Posts: 3,819 Status: Offline WWW]

My chapter books have speech bubbles and it definitely is included in the word count.

[darshana Posts: 298 Status: Offline WWW]

On a related note, how do you indicate speech bubbles in the MS? Do you put in a illo note?

[Artemesia Posts: 3,819 Status: Offline WWW]

My editor and I have made our own indicators for speech bubbles, text and illustration notes (since I am also the illustrator we have lots of illo notes so she knows what I have in mind before I do the rough sketches, if you aren't the illustrator, these will be minimal). We put the speech bubbles in italics with a hyphen and character name, narrative text normal, and illustration notes in parentheses. I honestly don't know if there is a standard. I would just make a notation at the top of the ms how you've formatted it.

[darshana Posts: 298 Status: Offline WWW]

thanks artemesia!

[Debbie Ridpath Ohi Posts: 56 Status: Offline Twitter: @inkyelbows - Instagram: @inkygirl WWW]

I lean toward agreeing with Donna: that words in the speech bubbles should be included in the final word count.

You should be aware, though, that some editors don't like speech bubbles in picture books. I know mine (Justin Chanda at Simon & Schuster Children's) doesn't.

Debbie