Though others will dispute whether he truly invented the short-message novel form, Mr. He had an understanding of how fast cellphones are changing life here, and a keen grasp of marketing.

Besides the usual functions, like e-mail, Web surfing, restaurant reservations, dating and global positioning-aided directions and maps for the lost that are already commonplace in East Asia, China's mobile phone world has become the latest frontier of individual enterprise.

Self-styled comedians sell jokes to the humor-challenged.

Others sell pickup lines and romantic advice to the bashful or socially awkward, like this pearl: "Stop always asking your boyfriend to accompany you shopping. Men seldom like shopping, and forcing it can trigger rebellion."

There is even a cellphone service offering advice to those who are clueless about contraception, or perhaps too embarrassed to see a doctor in person.

Indeed, another author, a Beijing television and radio personality, Dai Pengfei, claims to have published a text-message novel a few weeks before Mr. He, after having started out as a text-message columnist.

"Perhaps I am boasting, but I am said to be No. 1 among China's short message writers," said Mr. Pengfei, who is 30.

"Qian Fuzhang is more successful at turning this into money, though, and I respect him for that."

So far, critics have been divided on the value of the new form, with some issuing scathing reviews, calling it a cheapening of literature.

"As a linguistic art, a novel is to be read, and through reading, you savor the characters and appreciate the atmosphere," wrote one critic, Ye Yu, in the People's Daily.

"If it's only information you're after, reading news would be better. The speed of communication shouldn't overwhelm the feeling that one gets from reading novels."

Another critic in the same newspaper, though, called the novels, "a miraculous combination of Chinese characters, which use a lot of metaphor, puns and palindromes."

For his part, Mr. He dismissed any suggestion that he is writing banalities.

"Of course the storytelling is totally different from the traditional novel, because the technology only allows 70 words per message, and limiting yourself to that length is very challenging," the author said.

"One might ask can you attain the same literary depth? But I don't think literary merit is decided by the number of characters.

"Poems in the Song Dynasty had very few words, but they were very deep."