BLOGS Now It’s Literature
The internet giving a boost to the book business-at least in Japan, where online discussions are currently being published as books. The fad started back in October, with ”Train Man”: a shy young man asked for online advice on how to ask out a girl he met on the train in Tokyo; after getting online dating tips and encouragement-and two months later, the girl-the sage words were transformed into a book, which has sold 555,000 copies. The beauty of the tome is that it’s pub-lished as printouts of message boards and blogs, complete with Internet lingo and silly emoticons. Not much editing required.
The “Train Man” phenomenon has inspired other wouldn’t-necessarily-be authors. Tokyo-based Ameba Books culled a book from a hilarious blog called “My Devilish Wife Journal: A True Story,” in which a young man moans about his selfish and greedy wife. It has sold 70,000 copies since late January. Another hit: “This Week My Wife Is Having an Affair,” a reproduction of an online conversation between a businessman whose wife is cheating on him and his sympathetic fellow Netizens, which has sold 43,000 copies in less than two months.