January 22, 2008
Mobile phone novels ring up big sales, but critics fear for Japanese literature
Last month in Japan, the year-end bestseller tally showed that mobile phone novels, republished in book form, have not only infiltrated the mainstream but have come to dominate it. The New York Times reports.
"Of last year's 10 best-selling novels, five were originally mobile phone 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. What is more, the top three spots were occupied by first-time mobile phone novelists, touching off debates in the news media and blogosphere.
Whatever their literary talents, phone novelists are racking up the kind of sales that most more experienced, traditional novelists can only dream of."
... Mobile phone writers are not paid for their work, no matter how many millions of times their novels might be read online. The pay-off, if any, comes when the novels are reproduced and sold as traditional books. Readers have free access to the web- sites that carry the novels, or pay at most $1 to $2 a month.
Rin, 21, whose mobile phone love story was turned into a 142-page hardcover book last year, said ordinary novels left members of her generation cold.
"They don't read works by professional writers because their sentences are too difficult to understand, their expressions are intentionally wordy, and the stories are not familiar to them," she said."
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