How To Publish A Children's Book In Australia: A Step-By-Step Guide

By Tasman Publishers 23 October 2026 12 min read

To publish a children's book in Australia, choose the right format for your reader's age, have the text edited for reading aloud, then commission illustrations with a written copyright assignment to you. Lay the book out to print specs, buy ISBNs in your own name, print a proof before the full run, and lodge a copy with the National Library under legal deposit.

Children's books sell. Nielsen BookScan figures reported by Books+Publishing put children's titles at 29% of the Australian book market in 2023, which is why so many parents, grandparents and teachers have a story they want to see in print. The catch is that a picture book is the hardest kind of book to self-publish alone. The words, the art and the page turns all have to be designed together, and a mistake with illustration rights can follow you for years.

Here's how to publish a children's book in Australia, including the parts most guides skip.

Start With The Right Format For Your Reader

Before you think about pictures, work out what kind of book you've written. Age decides word count, word count decides page count, and page count decides most of what the book costs to illustrate and print. Get this wrong and you'll pay to fix it later.

Format	Reader age	Typical words	Typical pages	Illustration
Board book	0 to 3	Under 200	12 to 16 thick pages	One simple idea per spread
Picture book	3 to 7	500 to 1,000 (often under 600)	24, 32 or 40	Full colour on every spread
Early reader	5 to 8	1,500 to 5,000	32 to 64	A picture every page or two
Chapter book	7 to 10	5,000 to 15,000	64 to 120	Black and white spot art
Middle grade	8 to 12	20,000 to 50,000	120 to 250	Illustrated cover, text inside

These are the conventions booksellers and librarians expect. A book well outside them is harder to shelve and sell, so treat them as guardrails rather than suggestions.

How Many Pages In A Picture Book?

Thirty-two, almost always. Books are printed on big sheets that are folded and trimmed into sections, so the page count has to be a multiple of eight. Take out the title page, imprint page and dedication, and a 32-page picture book leaves you about twelve to fourteen spreads for the story. Write to that from the start and you won't be padding the story, or cutting a favourite scene, at layout.

Picture Book Or Early Reader?

This is the choice first-time authors most often get wrong. A picture book is read to a child by an adult, so it can use rich, surprising words and lean on the art to tell half the story. An early reader is read by the child, so vocabulary and sentence length are controlled, and the pictures support decoding rather than carrying the plot.

Quick test: if your text runs past about 1,000 words and still needs a picture on every page, it's probably an early reader, or a picture book that needs cutting. Picture book word count matters. Shorter texts read aloud better and leave room for the art.

Edit The Text For Reading Aloud

A picture book is a performance. A parent will read it on the couch, a teacher will read it to thirty kids on the mat, and both will notice every clunky line. Good children's book editing checks rhythm, sentence length, age-appropriate vocabulary and where each page turn falls, because the turn is where the surprise lands.

Rhyme needs extra care. It has to scan perfectly or it trips the adult reading it. Fix the metre now, because reworking words is far cheaper than repainting artwork. Our book editing team reads picture book texts aloud for exactly this reason.

Finding A Children's Book Illustrator In Australia

Illustration is your biggest decision and the biggest share of the budget. Hire someone who already works in the style you want. Watercolour suits gentle bedtime stories. Flat vector reads clearly at small sizes, which helps board books. Digital painting holds up on a big hardcover trim, and line-and-wash is great for busy, funny scenes kids love to search through.

Whoever you hire, the work should happen in stages you can approve:

Character sheets. Your main characters drawn from the front, side and back with a range of expressions, so they look like the same wombat or the same kid on every page and in any sequel.
Pencil roughs for every spread. This is where changes are quick and cheap.
Line art and colour. Only after you've signed off the roughs.
Print-ready files. 300 dpi in CMYK at final size, with 3mm bleed where art runs off the page.

That last point catches authors out. Art made for screens in RGB looks lovely on a laptop and muddy on paper, and printers reject it.

Who Owns The Illustrations?

Most guides skip this. Under Australian copyright law, a freelance illustrator usually owns the copyright in the artwork they create, and an assignment of copyright only counts if it's in writing. Paying for the drawings doesn't automatically make them yours. Some contracts give you only a licence to use the art in one edition of one book, which can block a sequel, merchandise or a foreign edition later.

Before any drawing starts, ask for three things in writing:

A full assignment of copyright in the commissioned artwork to you, on final payment.
The layered source files, not just flattened print PDFs, so the art can be adapted later.
Confirmation the artwork is original and drawn by a person, not stock or AI-generated images.

The illustrator will normally keep the moral right to be credited as the artist. That's standard, fair and costs you nothing. At Tasman, copyright in the commissioned artwork is assigned to you in writing on final payment, and you approve every illustration from rough to final colour. See how it works on our illustration page.

Can I Illustrate My Own Children's Book?

Absolutely, and it's the single biggest saving available. Just get the files checked against your printer's specifications before you upload anything: resolution, colour profile, bleed and trim. Plenty of author-illustrators pay only for that check plus layout.

Lay Out The Book And Get The Files Right

Children's book formatting is closer to design than typesetting. Text has to sit where the art leaves room for it, faces and words have to stay clear of the gutter where the binding swallows the page, and anything running to the edge needs bleed.

If you want an ebook as well, illustrated books need a fixed-layout ebook so the art and text stay where you put them. A standard reflowable ebook will scramble a picture book. Our formatting service sets up the print interior and the fixed-layout ebook together, ready for children's book printing in Australia or overseas.

Got A Story Ready For Pictures? We edit, illustrate, lay out and print children's books, and you approve every illustration before it's painted. Send us the story or just the idea for a fixed quote. Get a fixed quote or call +61 8 7111 2944.

ISBNs, Legal Deposit And The Catalogue Record

Every format you sell needs its own ISBN, so a hardback and a paperback of the same picture book use two. In Australia they're sold by Thorpe-Bowker through myidentifiers.com.au. Register them in your own name so you stay the publisher of record. Our guide on how to get an ISBN in Australia explains why the free Amazon ISBN is a trap.

Once the book is out, Australian law requires legal deposit. If you self-publish, you're the publisher, so lodging a copy with the National Library of Australia is your job, even if you printed overseas or used a platform based outside Australia. Ebooks go through the free National edeposit (NED) service, which also covers most state and territory library obligations.

Picture Book Printing: Hardback, Paperback Or Board Book?

This is where self-publishing children's books in Australia gets practical. You have two broad routes.

Print on demand (such as IngramSpark or Amazon KDP). Copies are printed as they're ordered, with no stock and no minimum. The cost per copy is higher, though, and paper and binding choices are limited.
An offset print run. You order a set quantity. The cost per copy falls as the run grows and you get far more choice of paper and finishes, but you'll need somewhere to store the boxes.

Plenty of authors use both: a print run for school visits and markets, and print on demand for online orders.

Hardcover picture book printing costs more per copy, but hardbacks survive bedtime, libraries prefer them, and they make better gifts. Paperbacks are lighter and cheaper to post. Board books are a specialist job. Amazon KDP doesn't make them, so they're normally printed as a run on thick board with rounded corners.

Always print a proof. Colours on paper never match your screen exactly, and a proof in your hands is the last chance to catch a skin tone that's come out grey or a word lost in the gutter. Nothing should go to a full run until you've held one.

What Moves The Cost Of A Children's Book

Two picture books can differ hugely in cost. Children's book illustration cost in particular swings on a handful of things, and knowing them helps you compare quotes honestly:

Factor	Why it matters
Number of illustrations	The biggest driver by far. Fourteen full spreads is a very different job from ten chapter-head spots.
Coverage on the page	A full-bleed spread takes much longer than a small vignette in the same style.
Illustration style	Textured painting and fine detail take longer than flat shapes.
Recurring characters	Each one needs a design sheet to stay consistent.
Page count and trim size	More pages and bigger trims mean more art and more paper.
Hardback or paperback	Binding changes the cost of every copy you print.
Print run	Bigger runs cost more up front but much less per copy.
Turnaround	A tight deadline can mean more people on one book, which adds coordination.

Ask any studio to itemise illustration per piece. A single lump sum for "the pictures" is impossible to check. For the bigger picture, our publishing costs page explains how a full project is quoted.

How To Get A Children's Book Into Schools And Libraries

For many Australian children's authors, schools and libraries matter more than bookshops. A copy on a library shelf gets read by dozens of kids, and it can earn you lending-right payments too. Here's what actually helps:

Be in the wholesale catalogues. Schools, libraries and independent bookshops order through wholesalers, which is another reason to use your own ISBN rather than a store-locked one.
Get a SCIS record. SCIS, run by Education Services Australia, supplies ready-made catalogue records that school libraries download into their systems. Publishers, self-publishers included, can contact SCIS to have titles catalogued.
Register for lending rights. The federal Public Lending Right (PLR) and Educational Lending Right (ELR) schemes pay eligible Australian creators and publishers when enough copies of a book sit in public or educational libraries. ELR needs a catalogue record in SCIS or the national bibliographic database.
Consider the CBCA awards. The Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Awards take entries for books published in the calendar year of entry, with an entry fee. Read the current Awards Policy on cbca.org.au for eligibility before you enter.
Do the local legwork. Offer a reading at your local library, contact school librarians directly, and plan around CBCA Book Week each August. Your state writers' centre, such as Writing NSW, can point you to festivals and school-visit programs.

Be wary of anyone who guarantees library or school sales. Nobody can.

Choosing Between Children's Book Publishers In Australia

Search for children's book publishers in Australia and you'll find two very different businesses mixed together. Trade houses choose a small number of manuscripts and take on the cost and the rights. Author-services companies like Tasman work for you: you pay for editing, illustration, design and printing, and you keep the copyright and all your royalties.

If you go the second route, check these before you sign:

Is the ISBN registered in your name?
Does the illustration contract assign copyright to you, or only license it?
Is the quote fixed and itemised, or open-ended?
Does the company take any share of your royalties?

Common Mistakes When You Self-Publish A Picture Book In Australia

Commissioning art before the text is final. Every change after painting starts costs real money.
Writing too long. A 2,000-word picture book usually needs cutting, not more pages.
Ignoring page turns. Map the text to spreads before anyone draws.
Skipping the printed proof to save a week.

Want One Team To Handle The Whole Book?

We're an Adelaide-based author services company in Unley, and we run children's books end to end: editing, a matched illustrator, layout, ISBNs in your name, a printed proof posted to you, and retail and library listings. You approve every illustration before it's painted, the artwork copyright is assigned to you, and you keep 100% of your royalties.

See our book publishing services, or send us your story, even if it's just an idea. We'll tell you which format it suits and give you a fixed quote before anything starts.

Children's Book Publishing Questions

How much does it cost to publish a children's book in Australia?

It depends mostly on illustration. The number of illustrated spreads, how much of each page the art covers, the style, and how many recurring characters need designing set the bulk of the cost. Hardback or paperback, the size of the print run and how fast you need the book move it further. Send us your story and we'll give you a fixed, itemised quote.

How many pages should a picture book be?

Most picture books are 32 pages, and nearly all are a multiple of eight (24, 32 or 40), because books are printed on large sheets folded into sections. Once the title page, imprint page and dedication are in, a 32-page book usually leaves room for about twelve to fourteen illustrated spreads. Plan your page turns to that number before any drawing starts.

Who owns the illustrations in my children's book?

Whoever the contract says. Copyright starts with the illustrator, so unless it is assigned to you in writing, you may only hold a licence to use the art in one edition. Ask for a written assignment of copyright on final payment. At Tasman the commissioned artwork is assigned to you, and the illustrator keeps only the moral right to be credited.

How long does it take to publish a picture book?

Illustration sets the pace. For a 24 to 32 page picture book, we usually allow four to six months from an approved manuscript to printed copies, because roughs, line art and colour each need your sign-off. A chapter book with a handful of spot illustrations moves faster. Rushing the artwork is the one shortcut readers notice.

Can a self-published children's book get into schools and libraries?

Yes, but nobody can promise it. Give the book an ISBN in your own name, list it with the wholesale catalogues that schools and libraries order from, and ask SCIS to catalogue it so school libraries can find a record. Then do the legwork: school visits, your local library and your state writers' centre.