Have you read your cell phone?

Japan has frequently led the way in embracing new media technology. Remember when no one knew what manga were? Now every librarian who works with tweens and teens is buying them. The latest trend from Japanese teenagers is the cell phone novel. Kids, especially girls, are not only reading short novels on cell phones, they are writing them. As the recent article in School Library Journal tells us, Japanese publishers have been finding and publishing new novelists who got their start writing cell phone novels. Perhaps it is true as one publisher suggests that the day of the blockbuster is over and the cell phone fiction will find find its place selling a limited number of copies to niche audiences. This is certainly a trend to keep an eye on.