When David Des Jardines packed up and moved from South Georgia to New York almost three decades ago, he knew only one thing.
“I love books and that’s all I knew,” he said. “So I moved to New York and found work in publishing there. I just stumbled around and stumbled into a job.”
Des Jardines is now the electronic information manager and assistant marketing manager for the UGA Press. He’s been at the press 20 years and has done everything from sending out book catalogs to reading book drafts to making UGA Press books available on Kindle and other e-book readers. He’s worked in marketing, advertising and acquisitions. Now, he’s back in the marketing department, where he helps to manage the website for the press.
He said it took him about a decade to be cured of any romantic notions of publishing and learn that publishing is a business, “not just a place for people who love books to go hang out and talk about them.”
“We still do plenty of talking about books around here, but the talk is informed by our business sensibilities,” he said.
Of the books in the UGA Press catalog, Des Jardines said that one of his proudest accomplishments was helping to acquire The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary, a value-added edition of the classic Ambrose Bierce classic. It’s a collection of dark and cynical definitions of common words and remains one of the press’ best sellers.
Des Jardines said he was familiar with the work when it came across his desk in acquisitions and he knew it could be something good.
“You can buy a thrown-together version of The Devil’s Dictionary for really cheap, but we have the definitive edition of this work,” he said.
It includes definitions left out of the original book, background information and footnotes on the definitions and definitions scholars thought Bierce didn’t write were discarded.
His favorite definition is bore, which Bierce defines as “A person who talks when you wish him to listen.”
Des Jardines has seen a lot of changes in his three decades in publishing. Technology has been the driving force behind change. Now it’s easier to print high-quality small batches of books and still make a profit. The other change is in data.
When Des Jardines started working in publishing, e-books didn’t even exist and now they’re a big part of his job. He sends the digital files off to be converted in to an e-publishing format and then sends that finished file to e-book distributors and retailers.
UGA Press has about 2,000 books available in print, and will soon have 200 available as e-books. Most new books come out both in print and digital formats and the press is working on converting and getting permissions for older books.
“I think a lot of segments of book readers are already won over,” he said. “Fiction is great for the Kindle. For people who read in genres, science fiction, romance-it’s perfect.”
While the publishing industry may be focusing more on e-books now, Des Jardines said that “paper books aren’t going away in our lifetime.”
Printing is easy, he said. And while some e-readers allow for electronic bookmarks and making notes in the margin, he said “it’s not the same as carrying a book around, turning down the pages and loaning it to your friends.”
FACTS
David Des Jardines
Electronic Information Manager and Assistant Marketing Manager
UGA Press
B.A., English, Valdosta State University, 1981
Computer Programming Diploma, Athens Technical College, 2001
At UGA: 20 years