How to Write a Children’s Book | Finding Your Ideal Reader

Are you looking to write a children’s book? Well, you’re in luck. Today’s part 1 in How to Write a Children’s Book | Finding Your Ideal Reader.

If you’re writing a children’s book and you’re looking to find your ideal reader, then you’re best bet is to try and creating a readers avatar. What is a reader avatar? Basically, it’s a visual representation of your ideal reader for children’s book. Whether you’re writing a chapter book, writing a children’s picture, writing a middle grade book or writing a young adult (YA) book, the reader’s avatar will help you pinpoint and target your ideal reader.

There are 3 main elements when writing a children’s book and creating a readers avatar.

1. Gender – Children will relate better to character that is the same gender as they are. While this doesn’t mean the opposite gender will not read the book, your ideal reader avatar will be the same gender as your main character. So, if you know your main character will be a male, then you’re ideal reader avatar will be a boy.

2. Age – Similar to gender, children will relate better to a character who is the same age or slightly older than they are. This is a fine line you want to walk as having a main character too much older than your ideal reader, will create a character and situations that the reader cannot relate to and will, most likely, result in an unhappy or unengaged reader

3. Grade level – This works in relation to age, but takes it a bit deeper. While grade level may not drive the main character of the study, it will affect many other aspects of the book as a whole, including plot complexity, character development, dialogue and overall length of your manuscript. You may know that your ideal reader avatar will be 10-14, you now need to decide if you want to gear it towards the younger Middle Grade genre or the older Young Adult genre. With Middle Grade books your overall book length will be typically between 30k-45k words, while Young Adult books are more likely 40k-55k. Also, with young adult books you can get away with more adult language and topics compared to middle grade books.

Another example of how the grade level of your ideal reader avatar will affect your book is when you’re comparing the Picture Book vs the Chapter Book. While the age range of your ideal reader avatar may overlap, deciding which of these two grade levels to write will be the difference in a 200 word, heavily illustrated picture book and a chapter book which will have up to 1k words and much fewer pictures.

In the end, the first step in how to write a children’s book is to pinpoint who your target audience (ideal reader avatar) is, so you can create a relatable, engaging main character.

Other Related Videos
Writing Tips for Authors Playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxYaxZXBOC3YFBySoUoF-PcgXc07VZL64

Pick up my book on how to get honest book reviews: https://amzn.to/2W8PvwD

Видео How to Write a Children’s Book | Finding Your Ideal Reader канала Keith Wheeler Books