Text Messaged Books Are All the Rage in Japan

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Image Source: H.G.

What has Rin, a preschool teacher in Japan, done that thousands of authors, both in print and aspiring, haven’t? Sold 400,000 copies of a hardcover book that contains a story she gave away for free.

Rin (a pseudonym) writes books via her cellular phone. Her audience is primarily the youth who check their phones for an update compulsively. The story is told in one line sentences, emoticons, and graphics called emoji. O_o . The entire book is sent via text message but despite the free nature of the work, hundreds of thousands of readers have purchased a physical copy.

This is true for many of the bestselling works in Japan. According to the Brisbane Times article, half of Japan’s top selling works of fiction were composed on cell phones and disseminated that way with the books average 400,000 copies in sales.

This phenomenon desires a O_o and a à¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ £Ãƒ ¢— ¡Ãƒ ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ £Ãƒ ¯Ã‚ ¼Ã¢â‚¬ º and maybe a à¯Ã‚ ¼Ã‚ ¿|à¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ £|ࢗ†¹.

Jane

Jane Litte is the founder of Dear Author, a lawyer, and a lover of pencil skirts. She self publishes NA and contemporaries (and publishes with Berkley and Montlake) and spends her downtime reading romances and writing about them. Her TBR pile is much larger than the one shown in the picture and not as pretty. You can reach Jane by email at jane @ dearauthor dot com

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