‘Cell phone novels’ enjoy growing popularity in Japan

Jan 30 2009

While ebooks are starting to increase in popularity and garner more mainstream attention in the US, youngsters in Japan have no problem reading novels on their cell phones. I have blogged about this once before in this post and it still remains an interesting topic.

Today I came across a very interesting article on a website called JapanToday about the trend of reading and writing novels on cell phones:

With cell phone sites buzzing with talented amateur writers such as kiki, the publishing industry is heralding the coming of a new demographic of young authors and readers who might change the industry the way kiki challenges the conventional novel.

The process of writing, posting and reading these novels is pretty simple:

The way it works is this: novels are posted by members of cell phone community sites to be downloaded for free and read on other cell phones. Reading often takes place in crowded trains during long commutes. The works are published in 70-word installments, or abbreviated chapters that are the ideal length to be read between shorter train stops. This means that, despite small cell phone screens, lots of white space is left for ease of reading. Multiple short lines of compressed sentences, mostly composed of fragmentary dialogue, are strung together with lots of cell phone-only symbols. The resulting works are emotional, fast-paced and highly visual, with an impact not unlike manga.

It’s interesting to note that these novels are free downloads. I guess DRM is not an issue in Japan with cell phone novels. Writers and readers alike are bound by strong love for the genre, not making money.

Almost as interesting as the article are the comments left by readers below the article. Some apparently think reading on a cell phone is a waste of time. Honestly, I think it’s more productive than, say, sitting on the couch watching sports for hours on end like many do in the US.

What do you think about cell phone fiction? Will it ever catch on here in the US like it has in Japan? Why or why not? Give us your opinion in the comments below.

2 Responses

Nice article on cell phone novels and I’m glad to see you’re open to the technology.
We’ve been experimenting with it for English language readers and writers at http://www.textnovel.com since June 2008 and have had a lot of members join and try it out. For more information, visit http://www.textnovelblog.com or to see some English language cell phone novels visit http://www.textnovel.com.

Stan Soper 1/31/2009 8:45 am
Nice article. In future every one wants to do all the works through their phone. People will come any new development.

iphone ebook 10/7/2009 2:37 am