10 years of the Skarpa Warszawska publishing house
It has been 10 years since Skarpa Warszawska has been operating on the Polish market.
It all began in high school, when Rafał Bielski, the founder and editor-in-chief of the publishing house, began collecting old postcards depicting pre-war views of Warsaw. When the collection grew, an idea arose to prepare a book publication in the form of an album. The success of the book made the author think about publications in a more professional way. After making acquaintance in 2011 with an outstanding Varsavianist, the late Mrs. Danuta Szmit-Zawierucha in the minds of both lovers of the capital came up with the idea of starting a publishing house and continuing the post-war magazine dealing with the affairs of the city. And so, 10 years ago, the first issue of the new "Warsaw Skarpa" got into the hands of Varsovians.
- Since then, the profile of the publishing house, also in response to the needs of the market, has expanded significantly, but the Warsaw issues are still extremely important to us. This is our foundation on which I have decided to build a broader structure. The desire to develop led to entering other segments, but the founding mission of, then only our magazine, was that we want to educate people, sensitize and raise awareness on issues such as aesthetics, architecture, spatial planning of our city, which has changed dramatically over the years. We see a lot of interest in these topics. Varsovians want to know more about their city and its past. During the Warsaw Uprising, the city suffered huge losses not only in the urban tissue, but above all human. And it is this second part, i.e. the reconstruction of man, that seems to me crucial. In a way, we want to reconstruct a Varsovian-man who will be rooted here and feel a community with the inhabitants of the city - says Rafał Bielski.
Recently, the publishing house received two business awards - Business Lions and Business Tuzy. Skarpa Warszawska has also won the Klio awards, the Capital City of Warsaw award Warszawa and ZAiKS for books on the history of architecture and the history of the capital.
- There are more and more of these awards, which makes us very happy, because we wanted to combine this commercial nature of the publishing house with values that are important to us, while creating more and more quality books, newspapers and magazines. These awards allow me to look at the publishing house from a distance and appreciate all the achievements of our team - people who believed in this project and who for 10 years, day after day, continue to develop it. Despite all these awards, we do not rest on our laurels. We are constantly observing the reality, current times and prevailing trends to provide our readers with the best and most interesting publications - adds the founder.
As we read in the release, the last three years have taught the publishing house a lot of humility in the business world. Many plans have been ruined as a result of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, which is why the company tries to adapt to the market situation on an ongoing basis, while providing readers with the best possible content. In order to develop further, Skarpa Warszawska decided to take over one of the oldest online bookstores in Poland - Inbook.pl.
- This is a project on which we will certainly focus in the future to a large extent, because we see that the synergy of the publishing house with its own large e-commerce brings the best results. We can't afford to be left behind, we had to take a step forward, because the book itself is generally moving to the Internet. We focus on development, reaching for new solutions, without forgetting the foundations on which the Skarpa Warszawska publishing house was founded - explains Rafał Bielski, editor-in-chief and founder.
Author: ET, il. Lukasz Silski
Source: https://rynek-ksiazki.pl/aktualnosci/10-lat-wydawnictwa-skarpa-warszawska/ | book market