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.
“People don’t want to buy the machines because there’s not very much content, and publishers aren’t keen to invest in the content because there aren’t many e-readers,” says Hamish Macaskill, managing director of English Agency Japan, a Tokyo literary agency.
Finally, though, Japan’s e-reader dark ages may be ending. EPUB 3.0, the latest open-standard software for digital readers developed by the International Digital Publishing Forum, an electronic publishing trade group, can display Japanese text vertically. That’s unlocked the door for some newcomers to the e-reader market, allowing them to use the same standards they use elsewhere rather than technology exclusive to Japan.
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