There’s a lot of talk about the decline of the publishing industry and how people don’t read books anymore, but one country where reading appears to be alive and thriving is Japan. Part of this may be attributed to the popularity of cell phone novels, books written on cell phones. Anyone with a cell phone and a desire to share a story can upload their novels onto various community websites such as Maho no i-rando for readers to download onto their cell phones. Many of these novels are serialized, with chapters or even single sentences uploaded one at a time, and readers can leave comments about how they think the novel should progress.

So why the popularity of cell phone literature in Japan? Talking on cell phones in public areas such as on trains or buses is generally not allowed, and thus text messaging has become the primary activity. Japanese people spend a lot of time on public transportation in frequently crowded conditions, so the compact size and portability of the cell phone makes it an ideal vessel for various media.

Cell phone novels, known as keitai shosetsu in Japanese, have been in Japan for some ten years now, but they didn’t skyrocket into the mainstream until the late 2000s. Most popular with women in their teens and twenties, the unedited novels tend to gravitate toward themes of sex, love, and violence.

Now many of the popular cell phone novels are published in paper form and sold in traditional bookstores. Book distributor Tohan claims that by 2007 cell phone literature commanded a $240 million market in Japan. There is even an annual Japan Keitai Novel Award with cash prizes.

But in trend-obsessed Japan there are reports the cell phone novel has passed its prime—before the phenomenon has even reached the United States. So what’s hot now in Japan? Well, that’d be the Twitter novel. I wonder what’s next?

Mariko Fujinaka
Thomas Riggs & Company
Missoula, Montana; Nice, France

From Thomas Riggs & Co Blog: www.thomasriggs.net/blog

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