In Japan, novels written and read on keitai (cell phones) have been gaining popularity for years. Known as keitai shosetsu (cell phone novels), these works are so popular — particularly with girls in their teens and women in their early 20s — that they can even make it to the national bestseller list.

These novels have been revitalizing the Japanese publishing industry, which had shrunk by over 20% throughout the last 11 years. By 2008, mobile novels and comics were a $240 million market in Japan. This past January, three Japanese keitai shosetsu publishers reported collective sales of 1.7 million copies for the month.

Some keitai shosetsu get published in print format after their success on cell phones. Koizora (translation: “Love Sky”) by Mika — a pen name, as many keitai authors use — has been viewed 12 million times online, and has been adapted for a manga (comic book), a dorama (TV drama), and a film which grossed $35 million. It also sold over 1.2 million copies after its print release.

Mika’s editor, Mayumi Sato, says, “It might seem strange that young readers are going out and buying the book after they’ve already read the story on their mobile. Often it’s because they email suggestions and criticisms to the author on the novel website as the story is unfolding, so they feel like they’ve contributed to the final product, and they want a hardcopy keepsake of it.”

The keitai stories often exclude development in character or setting for the sake of brevity. The writing style is often simple and filled with emoticons. Cell phones offer a limited selection of kanji, the Chinese characters used to write Japanese words, which also simplifies the process.

According to The New Yorker:

On a Japanese cell phone, you type the syllables of hiragana and katakana, and the phone suggests kanji from a list of words you use most frequently. Unlike working in longhand, which requires that an author know the complex strokes for several thousand kanji, and execute them well, writing on a cell phone lowers the barrier for a would-be novelist. The novels are correspondingly easy to read — most would pose no challenge to a ten-year-old — with short lines, simple words, and a repetitive vocabulary. Much of the writing is hiragana, and there is ample blank space to give the eyes a rest.

The novels are usually published in abbreviated chapters in installments about 70 words long. Short lines of fragmented sentences are combined with cell phone-only symbols for a visual impact. A keitai novelist named Rin who was interviewed in the above New Yorker story explained the style of writing even further. Where the writer decides to “cut” the sentence is vital. In a quiet scene, the writer will insert more spaces and line breaks. For a chaotic scene, such as a fight, “you’ll cram the words together and make the screen very crowded.”

These are not required characteristics, but are often common in the genre, including:

• usually told in first-person narrative, some even purporting to be autobiographical
• feature a heroine as the main character
• focus on a love story
• involve racy storylines involving things like drugs, violence, prostitution, and topics even more taboo in nature
• written by amateur writers, although publishers are now hiring professionals to write for the market

The print versions of the keitai shosetsu usually replicate the phone version pretty faithfully. The books use gray or colored ink rather than black. The text is read from left to right from the top of the page to bottom instead of the traditional Japanese style of writing which moves vertically from right to left. The frequent line breaks are also kept intact. A representative of Goma Books explained, “Some publishers removed the returns, but those books don’t sell well. You need to keep that flow.”

Goma, which was founded 20 years ago, was one of the first to put the keitai novels into print and has emerged as a leading publisher of the genre. Last April, it began releasing Japanese literature with expired copyrights in keitai format. They have also launched their own keitai shosetsu sites, which they use to find new marketable talent.

Other keitai shosetsu websites exist, such as Maho no i-rando (“Magic Island”). These sites allow users to upload their works for other cell phone readers to download or subscribe to for instant updates. With its launch 7 years ago, it was the first such portal and is now the largest. The site, also called Maho i-Land, now hosts 1 million titles, and claims to have 3.5 billion monthly visitors and 6 million registered users. It has also offers free tools to help its members create their own works, since the number of keitai writers keeps increasing.

The third annual Japan Keitai Novel Award, held last year, received 3350 entries. The winner, Kiki, received ¥2 million (approximately $20,000) and a deal to publish her novel, I, Girlfriend, in print form. Jakucho Setouchi, a Buddhist nun, was one of the judges of the competition. Throughout her career, she has translated the classic novel The Tale of Genji into modern Japanese and has won several prestigious literary awards for her own works. She has also written several keitai shosetsu titles, which is unusual since it is not a very respected genre by academics.

Although the novels are praised for re-igniting an interest in reading in Japan’s youth, they are also condemned for dumbing down traditional literary approaches with their simplistic styles. Detractors call keitai shosetsu enthusiasts yutori, slang for those who cannot properly read, write or think. In general, the genre is regarding as trashy, similar to pulp fiction and bodice rippers.

According to a recent survey by national Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun, 86% of high school, 75% of middle school and 23% of grade school girls read cell phone novels. Since most of the keitai readers are between the ages of 10 – 20 years old, there is also controversy over such racy topics being marketing to kids.

Still, the financial success of keitai shosetsu cannot be denied. Recent estimates even indicate that its sales have surpassed paper novels in Japan.

There are still some, however, who foresee the looming decline of the genre. Chiaki Ishihara is a Japanese literature expert at Waseda University in Tokyo who has studied keitai shosetsu. He says the genre is “rapidly declining at this point. In a few years, it may not even be considered a subculture.” Michael Keferl, a trend consultant with Cscout Japan in Tokyo, says, “You are not going to have as many of the big hits as you had before because there are so many titles out. Things are leveling out now.”

If the cell phone novel market is cooling in Japan, it is just heating up in other countries. Referred to as “mbooks” in English-speaking countries, they are gaining popularity just recently because of faster networks and cheaper data plans from cell phone providers. More high quality, yet affordable, devices certainly help the cause, too.

English speakers now have their own mbook portals too, such as Textnovel, which has a format akin to the aforementioned Maho no i-rando. There is also QuillPill, which sets a 140-character limit, similar to Twitter. QuillPill is not just for cell phones, however, as the site boasts, “Users have posted their stories using desktop computers, iPhones, cell phones, mobile gaming platforms like the PSP and DS, and even a Wii!”

(On a related note, fiction writer Barry Yourgrau has an interesting article on The Huffington Post from last January about his experiences and insights writing keitai shosetsu as an American for Japanese readers.)

Sources: Time, The New Yorker, The Japan Times, BlogHer, CNN, Sydney Morning Herald
Photo by scion02b, used under its Creative Commons license