#know your reader

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Knowing your reader - part 02

Early Readers (Age 5-8)

Also called “Easy Readers” are short books that are written in a controlled language, with grammatically simple sentences. The length of these books can vary between 32-64 pages and 200-1500 words, depending on the publisher. Each page shouldn’t contain more then 2-5 sentences and is usually accompanied by a full page illustration. A very good tool when writing for early readers is the “Children’s writers word Book” . It is a great book where you can look up a word and find out the advised school level and find equivalent words for other school levels. Since reading itself is already challenging enough for beginners it is important to keep the plot simple but still engaging. As much as some people might think otherwise, writing for early readers can be rather challenging and maybe not advisable for new Authors. It is difficult to write engaging stories with so many restrains on vocabulary, sentence length and comprehensibility.

Transition Books (Age 6-9)

These are the bridge between early readers and chapter books. They are written like early reader books, but can be up to 4000 words on around 30 pages. They usually contain chapters of 2-3 pages and black-and-white illustrations every few pages. They can already be action packed stories with page turners at the end of each chapter to encourage further reading. It is quite common for these kind of books to be part of a series.

Chapter Books (Age 7-10)

In this age group series are very popular. The books are up to 10.000 words long (around 45-60 pages), and are broken up into 3-4 page long chapters. As transition books, they include black-and-white illustrations every few pages, but the language is much more complex. Chapter books contain subplots and a lot of action. Chapters often end in the middle of a scene to engage and encourage the reader to turn the page  and keep reading. To make reading a pleasurable experience they are often light-hearted and funny stories.

Middle Grade, MG (Age 8-12)

Some of the best known Children’s books are written for this age group, for example the Harry Potter series by J K Rowling. Kids in this age group are fluent readers and immerse them self into reading. The language is more challenging, with longer sentences and a much less restrained vocabulary. Stories have less linear and complex plots with twist and subplots involving secondary characters. This is a reason why series of up to 10 books and more that include the same cast  are very popular. The book length varies between 25.000-50.0000 words per book. Genres that are appealing to this age group include Fantasy, Crime, Horror, and Humour.

Young Adult, YA (Age 12+)

YA books have been growing more and more popular over the past years and have become a very competitive market. One of the reasons might be that YA books reached out of their actual age group and are now also being read by woman over 35. But this doesn’t mean that Authors should start targeting the new discovered marked when writing for YA, the target audience still are teenagers. The length of this age group can vary between 40.000 - 80.00 words. The stories are very complex, containing multiple major characters and can be written in multiple characters view points. The most common genres still include Fantasy and Horror, but also Romance and Sci-Fi.

New Adult, NA  (Age 18-25)

OK, strictly speaking this doesn’t belong in the children’s book category anymore but I thought it still might be worth mentioning. New Adult is a very new genre that developed over that past few years. It is a cross over genre between YA and Adult fiction.  The books are usually less Fantasy and Sci-Fi oriented and concentrate more on Romance.  NA books take on more adult issues than typical YA books. The books often include more sex, which can be quite graphic but not to an erotica level of 50 Shades of Grey.  The usual book length for this genre is about 60.000 - 90.000 words. The most common sub genre is definitely Romance!

Important Tip

Children prefer to read about characters that are slightly older then themselves, so the main character of your story should be in the top range or a year above the age group you are writing for. For example if you are writing for MG (age 8-12), it is good to have a main character that is 12 or 13 years old. Check out Part one of the “knowing your reader series” here: http://writing-with-stef.tumblr.com/post/136809406779/knowing-your-reader-part-01

[writing-with-stef]

Knowing your reader - part 01

As a writer reading is just as important as writing. It is important that you know the market and the audience you are writing for. If you want to write Young Adult (YA) Books you should read YA, if you want to write Middle Grade (MG) books you should read MG. Of course you should never only read one genre as a writer, it is important to read across all genres. But especially when it comes to children’s books you will find a lot new writers who choose this genre because they think it is the easiest one and have not read a single children’s book in there adult life. Don’t become one of them. Find out what is currently trending in the market and what has been popular even though it has been around for a long time. Visit your local book stores and libraries and talk to them. Also a great source for information are Publishers websites, there you will see what titles are forthcoming and which series the publisher commissioned as well as long time favorites. 

Children’s Book categories    

Keep in mind that those categories and age groups are guidelines that vary from country to country and from publisher to publisher. This is just a rough overview to help you with your own research.

Pre-School (Age 0-7) Short books that have a maximum of 32 Page that are meant to be read out loud by an adult and feature eye catching Illustrations. Pre-School book can be split up into three sub-categories: Baby Board Books, Toddler Books and Picture Books.

Baby Board Books (Age 0-2)

These books are about engaging the children through pictures. Baby board books are usually small in size, so the adult can hold the baby with one hand and the book with the other. It also allows the baby to hold and play with the book without the adult, learning to grab and to turn pages. These books have very few words or even no words at all, because the time it takes to read 25 words or more per page is too long for children at this age. They will constantly reach for the book, trying to grab and turn the pages, regardless if the adult finished reading the page out loud. For new writers it is difficult to break into this market, since most of these books are written in-house or commissioned. Toddler Books (Age 1-3)

Toddler Books tell very simple stories familiar to the child’s day to day life. For example using the potty, not wanting to sleep or learning to share, as well as learning numbers or colors. These books have less then 250 words and about 12 pages on average. They also can be Novelty Books that contain pop ups or flaps, use different textures or make sounds.

Picture Books (Age 4-7)

Traditionally Picture books are around 32 pages and have a maximum of 1000 words for the upper range of the age group and less then 200 words for the lower range. The preferred word count varies depending on the country and the publisher. It is important that you find out the preferred word count from your local publishers and write accordingly. The Stories should be simple plots with a beginning, a middle and an end, without subplots or complicated twists. They should contain one main character that portrays the children’s viewpoint, emotions and concerns. Characters that appeal to children of this age can be children, toys, animals and fantasy characters. When writing picture books it is important to keep the rhythm of the spoken text in mind since they are going to  be read aloud. But this means also that the language can be more complex, also think about including words that sound funny or add spoken sound effects.

You can find Part Two of the “Knowing your reader” series here: http://writing-with-stef.tumblr.com/post/152067510639/knowing-your-reader-part-02