MORE IS LESS!!!
One of the biggest problems I find with a large number of picture book manuscripts is that they are too long. The average I see is 1,000 to 2,000 words. For modern picture books, that's just too many words. It's no longer a picture book, but a short novel.
The average picture book these days is :500 to 700 WORDS!
Yep, that's it. Yes, you can go down to the bookstore and find many books that, but if you are a unknown, unpublished author, I would highly recommend sticking within those guidelines.
TRUST YOUR ILLUSTRATOR
Because you're a writer with pictures in your head and only black words on white paper, you may be tended to use descriptions. Resist this temptation! A good place to shave off excess words is in the descriptions. This is where you have to trust the illustrator. Your illustrator is a professional who will be using pictures instead of words to convey an image; beautiful pictues that will make your descriptions null and void. Unless it is absolutely, one hundred percent needed for the story, leave the descriptions out.
THINK OF A PICTURE BOOK LIKE A POEM: MAKE EVERY WORD COUNT.
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