Vince Books

Founded in 1991, Vince Books (prior to 1998: Kulturtrade Publishing Ltd.), is the sole distributor in Hungary of Taschen (since 1991) and of Könemann Verlag publications (since 1993). The wide selection of books these two international publishers had to offer was a great help in our enriching the selection of the most prestigious Hungarian bookstores with a sequence of albums of old masters and of modern painters, of applied arts, of architecture and photography.

However daring a move it may seem retrospectively, a year later, as soon as 1992, launching our Christmas offer of eleven artistic albums translated into the Hungarian language proved to be a great success. Our art section predominantly consists of the imported books of these two foreign publishers and the translation of certain items from their selection. Building upon the stable position we have thus achieved along the artistic line of publishing and relying on the experience gained through our professional contacts, we started considering the promotion of books related to Hungarian art. For success to be ensured on all sides, we were determined to expand the range of activity of our publishing company. Our popular science editions of high standards started with two international series. The volumes of "Science Masters" and "Mastermind" became extremely popular. Inspired by this success we started our own "Master Minds" series by publishing works written by Hungarian authors, all of them notable scholars in Natural or Social Sciences. In the next move we started publishing textbooks for students of higher education: we publish titles in law, pedagogy, psychology. Apart from this we are also present on the book market with forty titles of cook books and this year we started our travel book series with ten titles.

A rare exception among Hungarian publishing houses, Vince Books is successful in implementing publishing projects, most of which would otherwise exceed the company's financial capabilities, with the help of our international partners. In such cases we act as so-called 'program supervisors'. Our books, that come out in several foreign languages, reach the fit-for-press stage with the contribution of mostly Hungarian authors and co-workers; after leaving - in most cases Hungarian - presses bearing some foreign publisher's name, the books end up on the shelves of bookstores in all corners of the world (eg. Polgár chess-books, Szunyoghy-Fehér, Anatomy Drawing School; Ungarische Kuche; Ungarische Spezialitaten ("Culinaria"); Vass-Molnár, Herrenschuhe handgearbeitet; Csillag, Die Anatomie des gesunden Menschen).

Vince Books played a decisive part in the establishing of the Budapest branch of Könemann Musik Musical Publishing House in 1993. Due to their innovative methods, this publishing house has grown to world-wide reputation in musical publishing and distribution. Vince Books is also the Hungarian distributor of the scores of Könemann Musik Budapest. Not only has this multiple cooperation brought us the market success of the accomplished works and publications, but it has also provided Hungarian authors with the possibility to gain international fame and several collaborators with job opportunities.

Apart from publishing, importing, promoting and selling books, and establishing international cooperation, Vince Books has also entered the retailing business by running seven bookstores. The two shops in the Buda-area of the Hungarian capital can be considered bookstores of general interest, where apart from the wide range of books published by our company, books of other publishers are also available. Our bookstore in Műcsarnok Art Pallace may well be claimed to be the bookstore with the richest selection of art books in Hungary, this may be the reason that in 1999 this bookstore was awarded the Hermész Prize for the best bookstore of the year in the capital city. The fourth shop is in the Hungarian National Gallery, and the fifth shop has recently been opened in the Palace of Arts.