I know books have always been mobile. But now the mobile novel (novel on a mobile phone) is one of the surprise hits in Japan.
Trend Central reports most major publishers are jumping on the bandwagon following the huge success of Deep Love, the first of the genre.
The book was self-published by the author, Yoshi, and downloadable in installments from websites that offer other mobile phone services such as ring tone downloads. The story of Ayu, a 17-year-old girl who finds love through a chance encounter, touched the hearts of so many cell phone novel readers that it went on to be published in print, become a best seller, and is now being made into a movie.
It sounds like the plot of err….a cheap novel 🙂
Beyond the storyline, readers also enjoyed the interactive and collaborative efforts that the novel offered by being on the internet: readers were able to type in ideas so new plot twists could be added on as the story progressed.
But there’s very little that’s truly new. Dickens published his works in serialised form, as this passage on the Mural website proves:
When The Old Curiosity Shop was approaching its emotional climax — the death of Little Nell — Dickens was inundated with letters imploring him to spare her, and felt, as he said, “the anguish unspeakable,” but proceeded with the artistically necessary event. Readers were desolated.
…..and crowds in New York awaited a vessel newly arriving from England with shouts of “Is Little Nell dead?”
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