Now that the editing is done, it’s time to move onto the next exciting step in publishing your book – creating the mock-up.

I cannot emphasise enough the importance of a good edit. It simply isn’t sufficient to just have your husband or friend read through your story.
A good editor does more than dot the i’s and cross the t’s. A good editor really gets into your story and makes sure that all of it makes sense. You, as the author, are actually in no position to judge your text effectively.

A good editor should:

• make sure that the dog that dies in chapter 1 does not bark in chapter 4.
• get rid of repetition.
• make sure that your characters always act like themselves.
• help you when your rhyming story jars a little.
• fixe tenses, grammar, syntax, punctuation, etc.

Understanding the different job descriptions:

• An editor will take your story and give you guidance on how to make it better, whilst fixing text errors and giving suggestions along the way. 
• A proof-reader only corrects text errors and does not improve the story.

(Neither of the above rewrite your story for you. If you are looking for that, then it’s a ghost writer you need and not an editor.)

You are really saving nothing by trying to skimp on paying for editing. All you’ll be doing is adding another poorly put together book onto the pile that gives self-publishing it’s bad name.

The cost
With children’s picture story books, the text is usually under 1,000 words, so the editing does not have to be a huge expense. There are plenty of online editors on platforms such as Fiverr that are reasonably priced. Read their ratings and reviews before making a commitment. A 1,000 word edit will probably cost between £25-£50. If it’s much cheaper than this, I’d be tad concerned. 

There are some very common mistakes that I come across during editing:  

• Basic punctuation is often non-existent. Full stops missing and quotation marks either completely missing or wrongly used. My biggest pet peeve is the use of the exclamation mark! Many writers use it all the time as though it’s a full stop. It makes it seem like everyone is shouting at each other. Use it sparingly, and never more than 3 times in your picture book story.
• Present and past tense. I get the feeling that authors think these are interchangeable. They aren’t. You cannot just swop between them whenever you feel like it.
• Rhyming stories… I edit a lot of rhyming stories and I can honestly say that only 1 in 50 is actually any good. People mutilate the story (or the words) for the sake of rhyme – it’s like trying to squash a square peg into a round hole. 
• Many ‘writers’ seem to just dump words onto a page and expect the editor to magically transform them into a stunning story. Writing is a skill, and to be a good author, you need to spend time honing your craft. 

​Editor/author agreement
If you are working with an editor who has a good reputation, then I wouldn’t bother with this type of agreement. I personally feel it’s only necessary when the editor comes unrecommended. At the end of the day, an agreement is only worth the intent of the people signing it, and if you really don’t trust the editor enough to work without the agreement, then maybe you should look for a different editor.
However, all that said, here is a PDF of a simple editor/author agreement for you to download and use if you feel it is necessary. 

Hopefully you’ve done step 1 and are now ready to plan your text. 
You’ve probably already got the bones of your story written out, so it’s time to figure out if you’ve got enough content, too little content, and how it’s all going to fit together in an awesome book.
Things that need to be decided are:

• Word count
• Amount of pages

And then we can move on to page planning.
 
Word count
Consider 1,000 words to be your ceiling and aim lower. The exact amount of words really depends on your writing style and the story. I’ve worked on children’s books with as little as 280 words, and as much as 998 – and both of these extremes are amazing books. If you’ve already chosen your winning samples in step 1, you can use this to guide you.

Page planning
This is the last step in getting your text ready for the editor. This is crucial yet highly fun part of the book creation procedure. It’s where you plan the overview of your book. Below is the rough page plan of The Accidental Hero. As you’ll see, you don’t have to be an artist to produce page plans. Any funny squiggles will do, as long as they make sense to you. ​Repetitive layout (see spreads 8-9, 12-13 and 20-21) are an awesome feature to include.

So, there you are. You’ve written a good story and have great visions of getting it published. So now what? How to turn these words into a book?
My advice is to start with taking a trip to the bookstore. Seriously. A physical trip to the bookstore (obviously with COVID, this might be impossible, and then you’ll need to improvise). Seeing physical books on shelves and being able to touch them, feel them, smell them is a gift to anyone who wants to make a book. 
Look at books that are similar in content, length or have a similar target audience to the book you want to create. Hopefully one of the ones you pick up will speak to you, and you’ll be like, “This is it.” Or maybe it’s a couple of books – the size of this one, the binding style of that one, the paper in a third.
Then get intimate with the books you choose – take photos, write down their names, get their numbers, measure the size (you might need to buy the book first). 
I have a large collection of children’s books and I often browse them when I’m searching for inspiration.
What you are hoping to come away with after this exercise is:

1. Your book size
2. Binding 
3. Paper type

Binding:
There are three basic options when it comes to binding children’s books: 

1. Saddle-stitched, which is a fancy way of saying that the book is simply stapled together.
2. Perfect-binding (or PURR, which is similar), this is when the pages are glued together, and the book has a spine. Something to note is that this type of binding has a minimum page count of 24.
3. Hardcover, this is when the book has a … hard cover. 

If you are publishing through KDP, your only option is perfect-binding, which makes this an easy choice for you.
IngramSpark offer all three binding types, as will most traditional printers. The type of binding will naturally affect the cost of printing.