[maxi Posts: 71 Status: Offline WWW]

Hello,

I have an early reader text (at 1700 at the moment - needs some trimming) that I want to work up into a dummy.  I'm hoping you guys can help me with a question or two

- Is there a standard size range for these types of books - for a picture book I would usually work at A4(297mm x 210mm) per page but that seems massive for an ER book...?

-Would a publisher expect a dummy set out the same as a PB (ie pages in multiples of 8, 2-3 colour illustrations and the rest b&w)?

Cheers

[Lill Posts: 561 Status: Offline]

If you haven't already ... do some research into early readers .. there are different levels ... as you need to be knowledgeable of things like word wrap, word count per page, sentence structure, etc.

[Heather Hatch]

Lillian and Others Who Know:
 I do think that researching early readers is one of the most difficult groups to find authentic, specific and actual-factual stats on, in part because the books are specialized and most folks do not have the specific experience and are only able to generalize.  A lot of coaching on these for new author/illustrators is actually done in-house using the current stable, so there is less material floating 'out there' to learn from. Doing early readers takes inside knowledge, and knowledge is power. If you have good research resources/links, could someone please suggest sources?

[maxi Posts: 71 Status: Offline WWW]

I have tried to research this area but as Heather has pointed out, it's very difficult to find ANY specifics - any pointers at all would be helpful x

[Lill Posts: 561 Status: Offline]

I took a class from Anastasia Suen about 7 years ago. She may still offer it.
Also check publishers guidelines .. that may help.

I dont remember the specifics anymore, and they have probably changed.

[maxi Posts: 71 Status: Offline WWW]

Thanks Lillian.

I submitted my text (cut to 1200 words) to my agent - she really liked it but said the market is tough for these kind of books and usually dealt with in house (Im assuming she means WFH) but she did say that she will be showing my MS to publsihers who produce early readers so that's good enough for me x

[Lill Posts: 561 Status: Offline]

oh .. well if you have an agent .. then she would be up on the latest. I don't remember all the "guidelines" anymore .. just that there were lots of different levels and it varied by publisher. I don't think Anastasia is offering the stand alone easy reader class anymore ... there's something called genres.