Cell phone novels are really popular in Japan. Cell phone novelists can upload what they write right onto websites where readers can then download their work. No editors, no filters! Mostly, they're by and about young women. And the phrases are short enough to fit on a cell phone screen: "Daddy/Mommy/Yudai/I love you all so much/... --clatter, clatter--/the sound of a door opening./At that moment.../--Thud--/A really dull blunt sound/The pain shoots through my head..." OH NO! keep reading!
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86 Percent of Japanese High Schoolers Read Cell Phone Novels
-- School Library Journal, 3/4/2009
According to a recent report in Japan Today, 10 of Japan's print bestsellers in 2007 were based on cell phone novels—successfully selling about 400,000 copies apiece. One newspaper survey purports that 86 percent of high school, 75 percent of middle school and 23 percent of grade school girls read cell phone novels.
You may want to check out a late December 2008 article from The New Yorker on this phenom as well. For more info on cell phone novels, check out Magic Island and Gocco. And to download a few of your own, visit Books in My Phone. Mortal Ghost, by L. Lee Lowe, a YA fantasy novel, might be a good one to start with!
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