Why Your Picture Book Manuscript Got Rejected

Before I was a freelance editor, I worked in house and was often the first pair of eyes reviewing manuscripts. Frequently, I knew within a few lines that a picture book manuscript wasn’t going to be suitable.

There are plenty of cases where a picture book query may be rejected because the author hasn’t researched the type of book the publisher specializes in, or they simply had bad luck with timing and found the publisher’s slate full or their budget empty. Assuming, though, that you are submitting the right kind of text at the right time, you may still be rejected if your submission doesn’t fit the picture book medium, doesn’t display a good understanding of the market and audience, or is too old-fashioned. It’s also possible to self-sabotage by conveying an unwillingness to work within the structures of the publishing industry.

To help you write submissions that don’t get summarily rejected, here’s a look at the top ten problems I encountered in fiction picture book manuscripts and queries, and how to avoid them.

1. It would be impossible to illustrate and/or format.

One of my tasks as an in-house editor was to look at how a text could be paginated. That is, I figured out how to divide it up to fill the correct page count, which was usually 28, 32, or 40, with three or four pages reserved for front- and back-matter. I had to be mindful that the illustrator would only be able to show one moment in time on each spread. Exceptions could be made for a few single-page or spot illustrations here or there, but for a sophisticated picture book, full-page spreads are generally preferred.

If a text can’t be divided into 14–16 moments in time for the illustrator to capture, in such a way that the words are spread through the book with reasonable evenness, it simply isn’t a good fit for the picture book medium.

If this is your problem, have hope! If your idea is promising, you can almost certainly revise the text to be more mindful of the format.

2. There was no hook.

A story about a little girl spending a nice day with her grandfather is pleasant, but it doesn’t provide any urgency to choose it over other stories. On the other hand, if the book explores how the grandfather’s hands now shake from Parkinson’s Disease, yet he can still teach Dani all about learning from the garden plants and creatures with his eyes, ears, and nose, that’s a book with potential. The specific details mean it can connect with audiences interested in:

• Discussing Parkinson’s Disease, or similar conditions, with children
• Intergenerational relationships
• Nature
• Gardening
• Mindfulness and using one’s senses

3. The story was unfocused.

Your story may have started out as a science-focused adventure at the beach, but it suddenly took a turn into advocacy for reducing plastic pollution. Both of these are valid subjects, and they can certainly intersect, but if your conclusion is about plastic pollution, the rest of your story needs to directly build up to that.

Sometimes, you might just be bubbling over with ideas connected with your main one. Since your characters are going to the beach, you’re excited to talk about the wildlife there! And the plants! And being brave enough to let a wave crash over you!

4. There were too many plots.

The audience for picture books is young, and the medium is compact. It’s usually not feasible for readers to keep track of multiple plots and protagonists. Unless you’ve deftly written two simple storylines that clearly mirror each other until they intersect—for example, you alternate between two characters walking through the woods until they meet—your audience only has the mental space to keep track of one central story. 

If you have an idea for a secondary plot that you really want to integrate, ask yourself if it’s something that can be handed over to the illustrator instead of described in words. Some of the most brilliant books do just that.

5. It was actually a poem, not a picture book.

I could write a whole post about when a poem is not a picture book. In brief, look for these signs:

• It’s so long that you would have to have more than one stanza per spread.
• A lot of the words or lines are essentially filler and don’t directly describe the action of the story.
• There is no plot with a beginning, middle, and end.
• The most compelling reason to make a picture book out of it is “It rhymes” rather than “This content is perfect for the audience and medium.”

6. It was written in rhyme, and rhyme didn’t suit it.

It’s a common misconception that children’s books should rhyme as a matter of course. There’s a long oral tradition behind this, and picture books of the past certainly used rhyme extensively. These days, though, most publishers prefer prose for anything with a complex story. Reserve rhyme for any of the following situations:

• Musicality and wordplay are fundamental to the point of the book.
• It’s a concept book for very young children.
• There’s a pattern to the story that builds and/or repeats in new iterations.
• The story is enhanced by a repeated refrain.

If you find that the need to rhyme is controlling the events of the story, or if you can write the same story in prose without losing anything, then prose is the right choice.

7. You expressed unrealistic expectations in your query letter.

Publishers understand that first-time authors don’t have in-depth knowledge of the publishing industry. It’s pretty opaque from the outside (which is the whole reason I started this blog, because I’d like to change that). But if an author’s expectations are completely outside the realm of possibility, and their attitude is not one of curiosity and openness to learning, the project is not going to be a good fit. Here are some examples I’ve encountered:

• Pre-designing the book (often in a format that isn’t practical)
• Expecting to receive a larger cut of the royalties than the illustrator
• Trying to art-direct the illustrator (that’s the art director’s job)
• Demanding the book be printed on a particular kind of paper that is expensive, scarce, and not a viable option for the printing press
• Trying to control decisions about production and marketing that are the publisher’s purview

The most professional way to approach your submission is to keep your focus tightly on the text. You can make brief notes about illustration or layout matters that are essential to getting the story’s intent across, and you can certainly mention your own marketability. But trying to manage other parts of the publishing process only reveals that you haven’t done any research about the kind of relationship you’re entering into.

8. You made it clear you were going to be difficult to work with.

Every author gets edited. Sometimes a picture book is so polished and market-ready when it reaches the publisher that the edits are few, but something always happens during the editorial process that the author couldn’t have predicted themselves. The outside perspective, professional experience, and technical skills of editors and other members of the publishing team catch problems, smooth awkward language, and elevate a text to new heights.

Unfortunately, there are always a few writers who simply cannot fathom that another person’s hand could improve their work in any way. If that attitude is made apparent in a query letter, that submission will go no further.

9. The market is already saturated.

Sometimes, a solid manuscript simply isn’t the right fit for a publisher because they have something on their list that is too similar, or they’re aware of too many similar books out in the marketplace already.

10. The manuscript was written with old-fashioned sensibilities.

By this I mean sensibilities about what makes a good picture book. If you’re using books by Dr. Seuss as a model or trying to recapture the essence of Robert McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings, then you’ll really be writing for an audience who has already grown up. Contemporary picture books usually have much lower word counts than those in the past, rarely reaching 1,000 words in 32 pages. If there’s a lesson to be learned, it should be done subtly, without moralizing at the reader. If the text is full of delightful nonsense, it still needs a central thread to hold it all together. And the way children understand and move through the world should reflect to some degree the reality of children’s lives today.

As with the previous point, research is your friend here. Read lots of new picture books, especially the ones being praised by journals like School Library Journal, The Horn Book Review, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews. Learn how to keep up to date with those journals’ insights here. If you have access to a library ebook service like Libby, search by most recent publication date and you’ll be able to devour hundreds of digital books—although you should also spend time with physical books whenever possible to get the full picture book experience.

So, what do publishers look for in a picture book submission?

To sum up, publishers are looking for picture book submissions that:

• will suit a standard picture book format
• have a strong hook to attract a specific audience
• remain focused on a central idea
• have, usually, just one storyline
• are written with a contemporary understanding of how poetry and prose are used
• are aware of current trends and use that knowledge to carve out a new niche, and
• convey that the author has done their research, is open minded about editing, and either understands the business of publishing or is ready to learn.