Sure, a few weeks ago we were excited as heck about Trainman. We do love absurd publishing stories, and the fact that a man could meet the woman of his dreams on a Tokyo train and woo her with help from the denizens of a chatroom captured our short attention. But that was then, this is now, and we cannot believe a cute story has lead to ugly results:
It has also sent Japanese book publishers frantically surfing chat rooms looking for the next gold mine of electronic correspondence. “Trainman” proved that the narrative threads of a chat line can be quickly and cheaply edited into book form, conveniently bypassing the need for the ego management that goes with nurturing writers.
“It’s easier for publishers to spot attractive authors, even if they are amateurs, in the Net community and groom them rather than contacting existing professional authors,” says Kayoko Shibuya of ALC, a mid-sized Japanese publisher that has formed Freedom Breeze Publishers Assn. with five other houses to help bloggers get published on paper.
