Typed out on mobile phone keypads and uploaded onto websites, from which they can be read on a computer or another mobile phone, these novels are characterised by short chapters, minimal descriptions and lots of dialogue. Characters, like their authors, tend to be young and urban.
The world's first mobile phone novel is credited to a Japanese writer named Yoshi - in keeping with the conciseness of the genre, authors go by one name - whose Deep Love (2003), about a teenage prostitute in Tokyo, became so popular that it was published as an ink-and-paper book, selling 2.6 million copies, before being adapted as a television series, a manga and a movie.
But it's not sayonara to the printed page: Despite the leaps in technology, mobile phone novel writers must still rely on print if they want to make money from their words. Writers are not paid for publishing their work online, as most of the websites are free to readers or charge only a small fee, making most of their money from advertising.
By going from screen to page, mobile phone novels have become a literary phenomenon in Japan. Last year, five out of its 10 best-selling novels were written on mobile phones.
At No. 1 was Love Sky, a debut novel by a young woman named Mika, which has been made into a movie. It was read by 20 million people on mobile phones or on computers, and sold two million hard copies.
Mobile phone novels are also catching on in China, while an Italian man named Robert Bernocco wrote a 384-page science fiction novel on his Nokia 6630 last year.