How Pet Writers can Effectively Promote their Work to Publishers

Many pet lovers express their love by writing about animals. If you are at the point of trying to get your work published, then a variety of strategies can help you get your work before a publisher and on the road to publication.
Find publishers to target
You cannot promote your work to publishers if you do not know which publishers to target. There are many magazines and editors that publish various types of works regarding pets. These include different publications on pets such as dogs and cats. You can look at a resource such as Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, and Literary Agents 2011, 21E: Who They Are! What They Want! How to Win Them Over! to search for editors that publish works on pets.
Look for resources
There are different places where pet writers can get the resources to help market themselves. You can go to a conference. For instance writers at The Business of Pet Writing Conference got to learn about pet writing publishing and hear information about the industry in general. Presenters included Dick Donahue, senior editor at Publishers Weekly and Susan Canavan, senior editor at Houghton Mifflin. They had panelists from the American Veterinary Medical Association and the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council.
Reach out to the publishers
You want to get your work noticed by publishers. Make sure that you put together professional queries. Each publisher has its own individual set of requirements. Some will ask that you send in a query letter describing the piece. Others will ask that you send the entire piece, especially if it is something relatively brief like a magazine article. Follow all directions.
You also want to carefully craft your cover letter to make yourself stand out to potential publishers. If you have had any work previously published, be sure to mention this in your cover letter.
Create a blog
One great way to promote your pet writing is to create a blog. This is easy, and there are many websites that allow you to put out a blog free of charge such as www.blogger.com. If you get a lot of people to follow your blog, then this can be a great point to bring up with publishers.
You can also promote your work on social networking websites such as Facebook. Even twitter can be a great way to reach people. You never know when a publisher picks up word of your written work if you get it out there enough.
You want to impress publishers. Do research on them before you send in your work. Make a personalized cover letter for every submission. If it appears that you have done your homework and can mention something specific that the publisher has done, they may be more likely to take notice of you.
Getting a piece of work published is the goal of many pet writers. Try as many strategies as possible to give you the best chance of seeing your dreams come true.