New Picture Book Grand Prize: Submission Guidelines

Create and select the picture books you'd love to read yourself or to others!  This is a new style of digital picture book contest where anyone can easily participate from their smartphone, tablet, or PC.  We have established a new Illustration Category based on the winning work from the previous Text Category.  As our categories continue to evolve, we're expanding the possibilities of picture books!

A picture book often starts with a story idea.  But it might also spring from a single drawing, or a video you made.  Even a song you hummed casually could spark the next picture book.  In order to discover new talent across diverse genres, we are expanding the submission categories of New Picture Book Grand Prize!

1. Four Categories
Enter your work in one of four categories: Picture Book, Video, Illustration, or Fingerplay Song.

2. Everyone Votes
Finalists in the Picture Book, Video, and Fingerplay Song categories will be publicly screened via video.  There will be a public selection process open to everyone. Participation is easy as you can vote from your smartphone.

3. Published!
Grand Prize winners will be published as picture books by Kodansha. Furthermore, all finalists in the Picture Book category will be published as e-books by Kodansha.

4. Beginners Welcome
We want to encourage even those without prior creative experience to take on the challenge, so we’re offering a 3-month trial on 1 device for the digital drawing app CLIP STUDIO PAINT EX.

▶ First 300 applicants!  Free distribution here.
 

Rewrite the rules of picture books.

First, we’d like to express our thanks for all the truly wonderful, heartwarming works we encountered through the first edition of this contest.  As we progressed with the selection process, we ran into a fundamental question:

What exactly is a ‘new picture book’?  If we were to choose the best work, we ourselves had to go back to the true meaning of the word ‘new'! After long discussions among the whole team, we finally arrived at our conclusion:

'New’ means 'infinitely free’.
Unrestricted by anyone or anything. 
We believe the pure freedom inherent in creation itself is the very reason this award exists.
To give shape to this freedom, we've newly established two categories for the second edition: the Fingerplay Song Category and the Illustration Category.

● “I can't write stories, but my character designs are unmatched.”
● "I want to share our family's original fingerplay song with the world."

We are eagerly anticipating the dazzling talent that couldn't be captured within the framework of previous picture book awards.

You don’t need to submit a finished picture book. Just pour out all the enthusiasm overflowing from within you. That playful first step will surely lead to the next ‘new’.

We eagerly await all your unique ideas.  Ideas that may become popular children's classics.