About Us

PLUM RAIN PRESS is an independent publishing house focused on East Asia. The regional coverage is reflected in the name: “Plum Rain” refers to the rainy season in late spring and early summer in Japan, Korea, China, and Taiwan.

 

Our mission is to bring intelligent, entertaining fiction and non-fiction books about these fascinating countries to the world.

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Founders John Ross and Eryk Michael Smith are co-hosts of Taiwan’s leading history podcast, Formosa Files, which is generously sponsored by the Frank C. Chen Foundation.

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The success of this podcast, launched in 2021, prompted Eryk (and many listeners) to suggest producing some of our content in book form.

 

Meanwhile, Camphor Press, a publishing house John co-founded back in 2014 was in a death spiral. A new publishing house was needed as a lifeboat for Camphor Press’s many great titles and as a home for new manuscripts.

 

For John, the decisive element was wanting to publish a brilliant comic novel called The Cuttlefish by Chris Tharp. In his words, “It’s the sort of manuscript that only comes along once a decade – I couldn’t live with myself if I let it slip through my fingers.”