Market for novels on handsets growing fast.
The Economist (May 26, 2007, p. 84) reports on the growth of mobile-phone novels in Japan: from zero five years ago to US$82m today. Traditional print publishers suffer from inefficient distribution (piles of books go unsold, while there is over demand for other books) and a loss of revenue from second hand book sales. "So publishers turned to keitai books, which can be distributed digitally and cannot be resold."
"Yet with the market growing fast, new entrants are piling in, forcing publishers to find new spin-offs for keitai novels. Ironically, some have gone on to do well in print. Yoshi, the most successful keitai author, turned his most popular novel, 'Deep Love', about teenage prostitution, into a book that has sold 2.7m copies--as well as a film, a television series and a manga comic."
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