Japanese writers thumb their way to fame and fortune!

by Louis Hemmi - www.Hemmi.us, www.SacredCodes.com, www. HoustonBookClub.com

Five of the top 10 best-selling novels in Japan last year began as novels written on cellular phones, mostly composed on keypads by young women and read by others on their cell phones, the New York Times reported.

Long commutes give many people a lot of time when they can use a cell phone instead of a personal computer. This led to a rise in text messaging and these messages evolved into short stories that turned into books. The most popular genre is the love story, usually with a diary-like feel since they are usually from the first person POV. They feature streamlined plots and character development, much like the popular Manga comic stories.

Would-be novelists are paid only if their novels are published and sold as traditional books, not when readers access their works online, the newspaper said. One such novel, ``If You,'' was the No. 5 best-selling novel last year with 400,000 copies, the Times said, citing book distributor Tohan of Tokyo.

Wikipedia reports the average chapter is only 70 words long.

It takes some getting used to. Only a few lines pop up at a time because the phone screen is about half the size of a business card.

Improvements in the quality of liquid-crystal displays and features such as automatic page-flipping, or scrolling, make the endeavor far more enjoyable than you might think. For the writers, predictive text eliminates much of the tedium.