Thursday, December 27, 2012

On Board Books









  1. Marla Frazee is a master of the form! She needs to do more, if they're profitable enough for her! Everywhere Babies is simply divine!

    1. I love Marla Frazee too, but EVERYWHERE BABIES is a good example of a regular picture book that was "shrunk" -- not a board book original. (though it is arguably better as a board book).

      Also, Marla Frazee isn't the author.

  2. All true. Even Good Night Moon was a hard cover book PB before its huge resurrection as THE board book of twenty years ago.
    But- (correct me)
    Isn't every market observation just a made-up rule to be broken? The next mega-marketing success brings a flood of imitations of what only last year was a no-no.
    I would still represent a potential board Book (text only) as a PB for all the reasons you & Ed Anon mentioned. I just wrote one of these, and plan not a whiff of a hint of its cardboard affinity in my queries ;)


      Mmmm yes and no? In terms of THEMES or TYPES of books, sure. Like, when something new such as a new format of novelty book or something becomes a big hit, you'll certainly see imitators. But the board book world has additional hurdles because of the cost of manufacture, etc, so I think again they'd be imitators created by the publishers... not that they'd be acquiring more original work.

      IMO the best way for a text-PB writer to get a board book made is to have a successful PB first! Believe me, if you have a smash PB, they'll be falling over themselves to make a board book and/or spinoff books. :-)

  3. Lee Wardlaw wrote and sold a board book some years ago:

    1. Course since the example you site is a decade old and out of print... that kinda proves my point. :)

      Yes, there are always a few exceptions.

  4. I actually sold First Steps as a picture book. But my editor at Harper decided it would work better if I trimmed 450 words from the 500-word text, and turn it into a board book. (I complied, cutting 451!) At the time, Harper was trying to tap into the baby/toddler market by publishing original board books under the imprint 'Growing Tree'. First Steps won a number of awards, and garnered great reviews, but the Growing Tree line was not a financial success, and the book went OP after a couple of years. So, yeah, this proves your point! I really dislike it, though, when successful picture books are turned into board books. The depth and scope of picture book illustrations just doesn't look great when smushed into a board book format. Too, the texts don't often work for that younger age, either. But, it's probably the only way bb's make any money.

  5. This is very interesting! I often write and illustrate rhyming board book style posts on my blog (example... I have a lot of fun with it and have wondered about publishing. Makes me wonder (as I am a product designer by background) if there could be a way to make board books less expensive. Maybe like the way Babybug magazine is constructed. Because as Lee points out, scaling down a PB doesn't always make an ideal board book.

  6. Enjoyed the post! And enjoyed meeting you at the Eastern PA SCBWI last fall.

  7. I wrote a series of board books a few years back called What's That Sound? They were illustrated by Kim Lafave and published by Fitzhenry & Whtieside. I loved writing them, but it is a tough market. Here's the link.

  8. Jennifer, I'd love to hear your thoughts on submitting a picture book dummy(not board book) by an author/illustrator who has integrated some novelty elements like lift-the-flaps, comparable in flavour to the work of Britain's Emily Gravett. Would you advise submitting it as a 24 page dummy instead of 32 pages(one signature less), to allow for the increase in production costs?


