Dogs don't read. Dog owners do. Therein lies the secret to the success of an independent magazine called Bark. It knows who its real audience is. Literate, sophisticated and aimed at people who share their lives with dogs, this pet magazine appeals to the intellectual interests of dog lovers through literature, essays and art.

With 1,006 new magazines launched in the U.S. in 2004 alone, wooing subscribers has never been harder. Major publishers try to minimize their risk with business plans, pre-launch direct mail campaigns, and lavish premiere issues, while independent publishers sometimes simply follow their passion, starting small and growing organically.

Such was the case with two avid dog lovers, Cameron Woo and Claudia Kawczynska, who back in 1997 sought to drum up support for a leash-free zone in a park in Berkeley, California, by producing a modest advocacy newsletter that they named "Bark."

Working out of the back of their garage, Kawczynska, a public policy consultant, and Woo, an art director at Autodesk, put together an eight-page newsletter, supported by a few dog-friendly advertisers, and printed 1,000 copies to hand out to dog owners in the park and leave behind in pet shops. Along with reporting on the progress of the "off-leash" task force and the Mutt Mitt "Adopt-an-Orphan-Poop" program, they filled up the extra pages with essays, canine recipes, reviews of books, art and films with a dog angle, and interviews pertaining to the relationship between humans and dogs.

The content of Bark was so fresh, smart and readable that dog lovers couldn't wait to fetch the next copy. Bark quickly grew from 8 to 12 to 16 to 28 pages and a larger tabloid size. By the fifth issue, Kawczynska and Woo realized that readers would be willing to pay to get Bark—an opinion validated by the magazine distribution buyer at Tower Records and Books who called saying his mother insisted that he look into stocking the 'zine. The buyer recommended a couple of changes to increase newsstand appeal—namely, switching Bark from a black-and-white tabloid to a magazine format and introducing a color cover. Bowing to retail realities, they did.

About the same time, Bark began to draw national media attention. An article in the New York Times called Bark "The New Yorker of dog magazines." The Associated Press described it as "a magazine aimed at thinking dog owners." The Utne Reader gave it its coveted "Alternative Press Award" in 2000—the first time a pet publication won that honor. The reason Bark created such a stir was that it was unlike anything else out there.

What distinguishes Bark from other pet publications is that it is not so much about caring for dogs as about living with dogs. Instead of articles on pedigreed pets, breeding and training, Bark features dog-pertinent stories by respected writers, poets, essayists, novelists and artists, many of whom regularly appear in The New Yorker and on National Public Radio as well as on bestseller book lists. It presents illustrative essays on dogs in fine art paintings, cartoons, history and pop culture. It provides thought-provoking articles on dog behavior, science and physiology, while also offering practical housecleaning tips for pooch owners; advice on biking, hiking and traveling with dogs; office etiquette for dogs; veterinary health tips; and consumer-tested reviews of products such as poop bags and pet collars.

For Kawczynska and Woo, creating a dog-centric literary magazine was less intentional than motivated by an awareness that "dog people"—specifically, the fellow dog walkers they knew from the park near the University of California, Berkeley campus—have a sophisticated range of interests and appreciate intelligent content.

Early on, Kawczynska, who handles the editorial side of Bark, looked for ways to appeal to this segment. Her limited budget made commissioning original work prohibitive, but she discovered that well-known authors and experts who were dog enthusiasts were usually willing to grant phone interviews, especially when it gave them an opportunity to talk about their canine friends. "People always love to be interviewed," Kawczynska says. "Interviewing people who had something important to say was a way to get quality content that was original to our publication. And it didn't cost much money at all."

A voracious reader, Kawczynska gravitated toward featuring literary types, seeking out some of her favorite authors who were known to love dogs. In turn, Woo, who serves as design director, indulged his fondness for illustrations by commissioning dog-owning artists to do drawings.

Identifying such people was not hard. "You can always tell when an artist has a connection to dogs because dogs will often pop up in their work and sometimes in their author's photos on book dust jackets," says Woo.

An invitation to contribute to Bark, even as obscure as it was then, was usually greeted with delight. "A lot of writers and illustrators have a great passion for dogs, but not many avenues to express that in their published work," says Woo. "We give them a lot of latitude."

The contributors' enthusiasm for the caliber of Bark's content soon snowballed into introductions to other dog-loving writers and artists across the country and led to more contributions from some of the nation's best-known creative talent.

Even when Bark was distributed only in the Bay Area, it took a world-view approach to the subject. "It's important to bring in many voices so it will not be seen as a vanity press project," says Woo. "We discovered early on that we needed to present articles, essays and artwork that were more universal. That's the one thing we ask of the material— that it be part of a shared experience." The quality of Bark's essays and evocative images have resonated with readers everywhere, no matter their age or the type of dog they own.

Woo also found that illustrations were a good way to make that connection with readers. "An illustration opens up one's imagination," Woo observes. "With an illustration, readers are not locked into 'Oh, this is an article on a golden retriever'. When they see a photograph, they think there is something specific about that dog. With illustration, it is more universal."

Woo also learned that the reverse was true when it came to the cover image. "We would go to professional magazine conferences to get feedback from the pros, and they would say, 'Like the magazine, but you got to use photography on the cover.' Our newsstand representative would say, 'Use a photograph, use a celebrity, if possible. You'll sell more copies.' After a while we realized the benefit of using photography on the cover for that immediate eye contact. A dog looking the viewer in the eye was a really bold effect. We kind of settled in on using head shots of dogs about five issues back."

For Bark, communicating the right subliminal message has been important even in the area of advertising. From the start, Kawczynska applied her public-policy instincts to building a broad constituency. "Since we were an advocacy newsletter, I thought it was important to show the people at city hall that we weren't just a group of dog people who meet in the park; we had the whole community supporting us. So I got ads from restaurants as well as dog businesses," she says.

Bark soon went a step further by turning away local advertisers. Woo explains, "We felt from the beginning that our content had national appeal. We tried to encourage the local dog walkers, pet sitters and trainers to advertise in other Bay Area venues because we knew that if someone in New York picked up the magazine and saw even one Bay Area ad, they would say, 'Oh, this isn't for us.'" Instead, Kawczynska made cold calls to advertising agencies that handled national accounts. Early on, she saw a New York Times article on a new Saab station wagon that included accessories geared to people with dogs. "I never read articles about cars," she admits. "But when you start doing this, you have a sixth sense for seeing dogs in the newspapers. We contacted the agency and, lo and behold, they invited Cameron to fly to Atlanta to make a presentation."

"We are fortunate that the niche that we are in has never lagged in the last ten years," says Woo. "The pet business is one of the fastest-growing sectors—a $32 billion market. It's huge! People's passion for dogs has grown and the market has grown around it."

This passion for dogs has allowed Bark to build its circulation to 90,000 readers, with new subscribers coming from all parts of the country. "Last year we put a one-inch ad in The New Yorker," says Kawczynska. "What surprised us is that there are New Yorker readers everywhere. People were calling in from Oklahoma and all around. We used to think that our appeal would be with urban readers because so much of the dog culture that was being reported on seemed to be set in cities. Certainly that is still the case, but there are many folks in rural areas and small towns who subscribe to the magazine." A subscription to Bark has become a popular Christmas gift.

Although Kawczynska and Woo now think of Bark as a viable business (enough so that Woo quit his day job at Autodesk to devote full time to the magazine), they are proceeding cautiously. Woo still does nearly all of the design and production himself, while Kawczynska handles the editorial side with help from a part-time copy editor and some freelancers. Two years ago they moved the business out of their garage and backyard shed and into a 2,400-square-foot office space.

Currently, Bark is a 112-page quarterly magazine, but Kawczynska and Woo plan to go to six issues in 2006. "That's a big leap for us," admits Woo, and he recognizes they have to be more business minded. "We have never done any direct mail, which is how most magazines get their subscription base. We have grown mostly by word-of-mouth. Bark came out of our interest, commitment and passion for the project. We didn't sit down with a business plan or budget and say this is where we are going to be in two or three years. It has been an organic process."

As enviably laid-back as this approach may seem, especially to publishing giants that need to show a profit from year one, Bark made all the right moves. It introduced a unique voice to a fast-growing niche market and focused more on building a "dog community" through an affinity of shared interests than on building a subscriber base. Readers embrace Bark with the kind of affection and loyalty identified with dogs—a devoted following indeed.