Cell Phone Novels

This is the kind of thing you could go your whole life without knowing, unless you happened to read an article about it in the New York Times. It also seems like something you'd hear about on NPR. The number one bestselling novel in Japan last year was written on a cell phone. (In fact, five of the 10 bestselling novels were cell phone novels.) They're originally read on cell phones, where the author gets no remuneration. When published in book form, though, they can sell hundreds of thousands of copies. The top seller was even made into a movie! Crazy! And you know what has allowed this post-modern form of literature on-the-go to blossom? Japan's major cell phone provider deciding to offer unlimited text messaging as part of its monthly calling plan! It's remarkable how interconnected seemingly unrelated things can be.