Bestselling Novels… Written on Cellphones

Move over e-books… the bestseller lists of Japan are filled with books written (and often read) on cellphones.

Known as “keitai shosetsu,” these melodramatic novels use common text message shortcuts like abbreviations, emoticons, and sentence fragments. They are usually serialized and then uploaded to websites or sent to subscribers via (what else?) cellphone. But they’ve also been printed and/or turned into movies, and have become a cultural phenomenon along the way. Five of the top 10 bestsellers on Tohan’s (a major book wholesaler) 2007 list were cellphone novels.

(Source: Christian Science Monitor and The New Yorker)

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