‘Broken hearts, sore thumbs: Japan’s best sellers go cellular’
Cellphone novels are huge in Japan—no news to long-time TeleBlog readers. The New York Times has its own take on the phenomenon. As summed up by Bill Janssen on the eBook Community list:
What’s a “cellphone novel”? The story describes them as novels “composed on phone keypads by young women wielding dexterous thumbs and read by fans on their tiny screens.”
“Of last year’s 10 best-selling novels, five were originally cellphone novels, mostly love stories written in the short sentences characteristic of text messaging but containing little of the plotting or character development found in traditional novels.”
The top three were cellphone novels by first-time novelist.
“The boom appeared to have been fueled by a development having nothing to do with culture or novels but by mobile-phone companies’ decision to offer unlimited transmission of packet data, like text-messaging, as part of flat monthly rates.”
TeleBlog moderator’s note: As in the past, I’d wonder about the relationship between the content and the medium. Short sentences and paragraphs and simple words are great ways to draw people into books, but can all this be overdone? I’m delighted to read of a cellphone novelist who’s switched over, gasp, to a computer. The other issue, of course, is the fact that cellphone novelists tend to be amateurs. Another threat to literature? Or a chance to revitalize it? – David Rothman,
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