Dear Art Director, I've noticed not all publishing houses have an Art Director Roll. Is one of the Editors the person I should be emailing my illustration promo to instead? Who would be the best next person? Thanks!
All larger publishing houses have Art Directors. Only super small publishers don’t. In that case then yes, send to the publisher, the editor, whoever you can find.
But if it’s a big publisher and you can’t find the name…keep googling, because it’s definitely there. Remember that in the US, IMPRINTS don’t have their own art departments, only DIVISIONS do. In the UK it’s more centralized, there’s only 1 art department for each HOUSE. (Other countries I’m not sure if they follow the US or UK system).
Here’s a handy chart for the US: http://almossawi.com/big-five-publishers/
So looking at that map (it’s all US), the imprints are the left column, the divisions are the middle, and the houses are the right column. So you’d be looking for the Art Directors for the divisions, and they’d be in charge of that division’s imprints. If this was a map of the UK (it’s not, don’t use it like that) then you’d only have Art Directors at the house level.