Why Don't Novels Sell? Editor Who Launched Kyogoku Natsuhiko Says the Key Is Written Language [Book Excerpt]

As an editor, I would like to share my thoughts on the future of novels. The shrinking of the publishing market is a problem faced by publishing industries worldwide. While Taiwanese readers were recently thrilled by 'A Stroll Through Taiwan' winning the International Booker Prize, causing a temporary sell-out in bookstores, the overall sales of new books are sluggish, and literary novels are selling less and less. Atsushi Karaki, a legendary editor at Japan's Kodansha who launched famous novelists like Kyogoku Natsuhiko and Mori Hiroshi, observes that the problem may lie in the 'written language' that everyone uses extensively and writes with constantly on social media platforms. Changing the language used in novels might open up new opportunities.

It is widely believed that novels no longer sell in this era. Not just novels, but the overall sales of text-based books, including non-fiction, general books, and paperbacks, are dismal. In fact, novel sales peaked in the 1990s and have been declining ever since. However, looking at the entire publishing industry, some publishers have seen sales soar and hit record highs in recent years. Most of these publishers are experiencing continuous growth in manga sales.

In contrast, why are novel sales languishing? There are countless reasons, such as the diversification of entertainment brought by smartphones, an aging readership, and changes in the economic environment. However, manga faces similar circumstances, so these external factors alone don't explain it. That's why I've continued to ponder this issue since leaving my company.

Lately, I've begun to think that the poor sales of text-based books, led by novels, might be due to the 'written language' itself. We are in a period of great transformation in the history of human communication. The written language we use today, the colloquial style (kōgotai), was established after the Genbun-itchi movement in the mid-Meiji era. This style has remained almost unchanged, leading to a widening gap with spoken language, and it seems to be reaching its limit. Perhaps the reason young people don't go to bookstores to buy books is not that they dislike the content, but that they dislike the writing style used in the books.

It's said that the main buyers of novels and other books are now people over 50. Many in this generation may believe that 'the written language we use is the correct Japanese.' However, I discovered from reading works by linguists that there is no concept of 'correct Japanese' in linguistics, as language naturally changes over time.

In fact, the field of novels has attempted innovations in written language before. The Genbun-itchi movement itself was primarily led by literature. I witnessed several major challenges as an editor. For example, in shōjo novels, Aiko Yumeno's work was astonishing—she would add hand-drawn hearts and rabbit symbols to dialogue. This is commonplace now but was groundbreaking then. I realized that whenever novels attract new readers, it is always accompanied by an evolution in writing style. Watching the popularity of Nisio Isin's works, I saw the importance of dialogue. Later, Ryo Asai's 'The Kirishima Thing' resonated with its conversational style, successfully attracting young readers of the author's generation.