Back in October 07 I first covered the phenomenon of Keitai, novels for mobile phones. (See archived blog entries – Novel use of mobile)
The 2007 bestseller list, recently published by Japan’s biggest book distributor, Tohan, revealed that incredibly five of the year’s most successful novels, including the top three, were first written for downloading on mobile phones. The number one seller, Love Sky, selling two million copies in the last year, has now been released as a film, and has made a star of its author, a woman in her early 20s known only as Mika.
The new dominance of mobile novels – keitai shosetsu in Japanese – is all the more remarkable for the revenue opportunities they have created. In 2006, the revenues from these applications rose to 9.4 billion yen (£42 million). Several publishers operate mobile novel websites from which phone users can download novels for a subscription of about 300 yen (£1.33) a month. The stories are divided into bite size chunks called “gobbets” which can be read in about three minutes, the typical distance between two stops on the Japanese subway. Watch out on the Bakerloo line.