Late to the Game, Japan Takes to E-Books
Their language posed certain technical challenges
The Japanese are avid readers; the country's publishing industry generated $22.5 billion in revenue last year, according to the Japan Book Publishers Association. A decade ago, long before the Kindle revolutionized the publishing world in the U.S., Japanese authors were writing novels using text messaging and readers were catching up on their favorite novels and manga comics on their mobile phones.
But when it comes to e-readers, the industry has gone nowhere. Although Sony (SNE), Panasonic, and Toshiba offer e-readers for local consumers, sales have been disappointing. Foreign companies have stayed away, in part because their software had difficulty handling Japanese characters, as well as text reading vertically rather than horizontally. Estimates for the total number of nonmanga e-books in the market vary, but attorney Yoshiyuki Miyashita, a partner at Tokyo law firm Nishimura & Asahi who advises clients on publishing issues, says there are only about 100,000 titles. For the world's third-largest economy, that figure is tiny: Amazon.com (AMZN) alone has more than 1.4 million Kindle eBooks available on its U.S. website.
Hide Comments (0)
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post commentsMute this user?
Ban this user?
Un-ban this user?
Nuke this user?
Un-nuke this user?
Flag this comment?
Un-flag this comment?