Move over Kindle, Japan is way ahead in the ebook game!
Sometimes we Americans like to think we’re so innovative, especially with the much-anticipated (and criticized) release of the Amazon Kindle. Sure, it can hold a few hundred books and download them directly from Amazon’s website. That’s soooo yesterday!
Japan, once again, has figured it out. They asked: Why carry around a cell phone AND a bulky reading device when cell phones are perfectly capable of handling the job of both?
According to the TechCrunch blog, half the top selling books are not only read on mobile phones, but also written on mobile phones as well. I can’t imagine penning a novel with my thumbs using my cell phone. My hands ache just thinking about it. But it’s being done and the results are pretty impressive:
One book, Koizora (Love Sky) about high-school girl who is bullied, gang-raped, becomes pregnant has sold more than 1.2 million copies since being released.
I’m not surprised. The US has not been a leader in taking advantage of existing technology to open up new publishing markets. I don’t know if it’s a cultural issue, a literacy issue or a combination of the two, but the American publishing industry and the reading public are very slow to adopt new ways of doing business.
As a side note, I’ll soon be purchasing an iPhone, which I have read makes for an excellent ebook reader (not sure about PDF though). Once I test it out, I’ll let ya’ll know my impressions.
For the time being, you can read the TechCrunch blog post: In Japan Half The Top Selling Books Are Written On Mobile Phones
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Read More: Publishing News, eBooks
Reading through a japanese mobile phone is uncomfortable, since the display is small and plus the whole point of the Kindle is not being an ebook reader, is the whole direct distribution of digital media wirelessly.
And Japan right now doesnt have the infrastructure to distribute amazon.com digital media, which is the worlds biggest vendor of books.
Japanese phones cant download books from amazon, yet.
I would be interested to know whether electronic paper technology readers are popular in Japan. I am disappointed that Kindle isn’t available in Japan for Japanese books. From what I can see, FLEPIA and the LIBRie readers by Fujitsu and Sony are over-priced. It also seems, at least according to one site, that Japanese companies are placing a time-limit on the availability of material once it has been downloaded (60 days is what I’ve been seeing). This, too, would be a disappointment. My primary interest in these devices is for my Japanese wife. We live in Georgia and there aren’t many Japanese resources here. It would be great to be able to load up on 50 or 60 books (without dealing with the weight of real paperbacks and hardcovers!) every summer when we visit Japan so that she would have reading material for the year.
@Peter: Thank you for your comment. I’m not sure if electronic ink paper tech is available in Japan. I’m only aware of the popularity of ebooks on cell phones over there.
Please let us know if you find something out in this area, because I’d be very interested in knowing and I’m sure a lot of my readers would be too!