Books on cellphones take off in Japan
Associated Press via Canada.com Network, Thursday, March 17, 2005
TOKYO ---Your eyes probably hurt just thinking about it: Tens of thousands of Japanese cellphone owners are poring over full-length novels on their tiny screens....
"You can read whenever you have a spare moment, and you don't even need to use both hands," says Taro Matsumura, a 24-year-old graduate student who sometimes reads essays and serial novels on his phone...
...In Japan, cellphone books have already won respect as an emerging culture.
A writer who goes by the single name Yoshi wrote Deep Love, a series of stories about a Tokyo teenage prostitute. He began by posting them on an obscure cellphone site he started and made reader payment voluntary.
Deep Love, which uses erotic language and violence to create a page-turner despite a preposterous plotline, became a hit...more...
