Just as I was coming to terms with the revelation that the CIA is turning Afghan warlords into informants by offering them Viagra, I stumbled across the horrifying statistic that an aspiring writer in Japan has a greater chance of landing a publishing contract if her novel is punched out first as a string of text messages.  In fact, text novels seem to be saving the Japanese publishing industry.  More than a third of one company’s $42 milion in profits last year came from this new genre.

And now Textnovel has set up shop in the US to help those writing text novels in English capture the attention of publishers in the West.

As for me, I guess I’m a bit old-fashioned. I delight too much in mulling over my words to keep pressing <SEND> like that…

See The New Yorker’s entertaining article on Japanese publishing trends.