China this past week became the first country in the world to enable an author to publish a novel on cellphones - and get paid for it.

Qian Fuzhang (whose real name is He Xingnian), considered by some the Chinese version of Gabriel García Márquez, published his new novel, "Out of the Fortress," on tens of thousands of Chinese mobile phone screens Friday morning.

Weighing in at a mere 4,200 characters, the book was published for its audience of cellphone readers 70 characters at a time, 30 screens a day, in two daily installments, the first Friday and the second yesterday.

Other "readers" can call the "publisher," hurray.com.cn, a short text-message distribution company, to listen to a recording of each day's story as it unfolds.

The reader or listener pays a small fee, charged, like any text message, to the reader's mobile phone account.

The author received a $20,000 advance for his book from hurray.com.cn.

That's an enormous amount in China.

Another company in Taiwan has offered him an even larger sum for the publishing rights there.

I believe the internet hasn't even begun to show its potential for content creators.

This is simply an opening salvo.

Here's Howard W. French's excellent story, from yesterday's New York Times.
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The Novel's Latest Version Pops Onto China's Cellphones

As a critically acclaimed writer of dense, doorstop-size novels, Qian Fuzhang said he had finally developed a guilty conscience.

Moreover, as a writer in a country that tends not to pay its authors very well, he faced a challenge immediately familiar to writers everywhere: how to make a living cranking out prose.

Now, at 42, the author, whose real name is He Xingnian, and whose highly inventive, imagery-laden work has earned him comparisons here to Gabriel García Márquez, thinks he has found a solution to both problems.

The author's answer, titled "Out of the Fortress," showed up on tens of thousands of mobile telephone screens on Friday.

It is the text-message novel, a new literary genre for the harried masses in a society that seems to be redefining what it means to be harried.

Weighing in at a mere 4,200 characters, "Out of the Fortress" is like a marriage of haiku and Hemingway, and will be published for its audience of cellphone readers at a bite-size, 70 characters at a time - including spaces and punctuation marks - in two daily installments.

Other "readers" may choose to place a call to the "publisher," hurray.com.cn, a short text-message distribution company, to listen to a recording of each day's story as it unfolds.

All this for a small fee charged, like any text message, directly to the readers' mobile phone accounts.