My original business partner and I established Signal 8 Press in Hong Kong in 2009 in hopes of providing a platform for authors writing in, from, and/or about Asia in English. At that time, there were any number of exciting presses in the Asian anglosphere, but very few publishers were trying to take a more international approach. Also, around the same time, e-books were just taking off. The convenience of Amazon’s Kindle device and store concept was revolutionary, not just for authors but for publishers wanting to get in on the game early. That’s how we also got into e-book distribution for other publishers around the region, as well as for authors who wanted their backlists digitally reprinted.

We had to put our operations on hiatus toward the end of our time in Hong Kong. If you were keeping up with the headlines, you may remember everything there went to hell in 2019-20: violent conflict in the streets, tear gas everywhere, people disappearing, publishers abducted. During that period of time, my current business partner and I decided we would be safer to keep as low a profile as possible (there was a lot of “I can’t believe this is really happening here” during that time), so we suspended work and joined the exodus out of a place we had both called home for a very long time.

Not long after I moved to the UK in 2020, we formed a new corporation here and quietly relaunched with a more eclectic, less Asia-focused remit. But it quickly became clear that I’d run out of bandwidth. Partly it was to do with the aftermath of trauma: the state violence and the ensuing pandemic took a toll. Partly it was about having a much busier job. And partly it was that I needed to focus on my own creative work instead of other people’s (students excepted). 

Signal 8 Press has now wound down. We had a hell of a good run, helped launch a few careers, and worked with some amazing writers. I’m glad we did it. I’m also glad we’ve started a new and hopefully safer and simpler chapter.

 

MM

Truro, England

2024