Concept of this website
We want to be a gateway for non-native speakers of Japanese to find contemporary Japanese literature.
What inspired me to create this website?
Around 2013, I got hooked on the Scandinavian mystery novel series “Millennium”. I studied abroad at Lund University in Sweden for about a year from 2008 to 2009, so I was always interested in Sweden and the society of the Scandinavian countries. Therefore, I wanted to read more books that are currently popular in Sweden. However, when I searched the Internet for “current popular literary works in Sweden” in English, there was not much information that came up. If I could speak Swedish fluently, I would have found much more information on Swedish literature. However, I knew Swedish only as a greeting. I think this is why I was not able to access popular books in Sweden at the moment.
I wondered about contemporary Japanese literature written in my native language, Japanese. As far as language differences go, I think Japanese and English are farther apart than Swedish and English. This is because Japanese is written in kanji and hiragana, not in the alphabet.
Then I learned about a Norwegian initiative and website called “Books from Norway” at a meeting organized by a translator of Scandinavian literature. I also discovered other initiatives such as “Books from Taiwan”, which disseminate information about their country’s literature to foreign countries. I searched for similar initiatives in Japan and found some, but I felt they were not very user-friendly. Therefore, I decided to create my own website to introduce contemporary Japanese literature.
Website Policy
About the “Books” page
My own Wikipedia of Japanese literary works, which I will organize and store information about my favorite Japanese literary works and prize-winning works on this website, which only I can edit, because the actual Wikipedia is edited and changed by a large number of people.
About the “Authors” page
My own Wikipedia page on Japanese literature authors, which I will continue to enhance with articles on authors I am interested in, such as interviews with authors and their social networking pages.
About the “Awards” page
A collection of works that have won literary awards and book-related prizes. The concept of this site is “to be a gateway for non-native Japanese speakers to find contemporary Japanese literature,” but the books I can actually read and know are limited. I would also like to include information on books other than those I like. For this purpose, I will pick up some representative literary prizes and include information on award-winning works.
About the “Column” page
I will post simple sentences in a casual manner as my blog.
When I built the website, I was so enthusiastic that I named it “Column” in the style of NY TIMES, but I don’t feel like writing if the hurdle is too high. There is no point in setting up a website if I can’t keep writing by setting too many hurdles. Therefore, I will post simple sentences as my blog. If I can improve my writing style and the richness of the content as I continue, that will be fine.
Website Issues
Issue 1: I do not have a lot of time or budget to devote to creating content for my website.
As of 2023, I am a banker with a full time job & raising a 4 year old and 0 year old with my partner. This means I don’t have much time at my disposal. Therefore, it is difficult to write elaborate content articles. In addition, although I have registered as an Amazon affiliate, I have not been able to monetize it as of 2023, so I currently have no income from running this website. In fact, the cost of outsourcing the website construction and the domain name fees have resulted in a loss of about 300,000 yen.
Solution 1: I’m going to take it easy and keep writing simple articles. I will be happy if the revenue becomes positive someday, but for now, I want to enrich the contents for my own enjoyment.
Issue 2: The website is slow.
Especially the Awards page. And I don’t really know how to change the website specs. Because I outsourced the construction of a slightly elaborate website to Coconara, so I don’t know how to fix it myself.
Solution 2: Hopefully, I will gradually get used to using Elementor and eventually be able to create the design I want. If I have to change the specifications in a hurry, I will outsource it again.
Issue 3: I can’t use the book cover design.
I built a website designed to look like a book cover design, but later realized that I could not use the real book cover design without permission in terms of copyright infringement.
Solution 3: I’m thinking of using an appropriate imitation of the actual book cover design that I draw myself to apply.
Issue 4: The only languages I can use are currently Japanese and English.
I created a Simplified Chinese page to see if I could get more readers, but I don’t understand most of the Simplified Chinese text. Although I am using the AI automatic translation site DeepL to create English to Simplified Chinese text, I cannot judge for myself whether the meaning of the automatically translated text is correct or not, or whether the text is accurately conveyed.
Solution 4: I am considering whether to stop the Simplified Chinese page and make it English only, or make it an English page and a Japanese page.
Issue 5: The website does not have a mechanism to extract books by translated language.
Presumably, visitors to this website would like to know which Japanese literary works have already been translated into the languages they can read. However, when I outsourced the creation of this website, I did not consider creating such a mechanism.
Solution 5: It would be nice if I could eventually add a mechanism that allows extraction by translated language. Currently, I think it is possible to search by hashtag.
The benefits of this website for me
By organizing and compiling information about my favorite Japanese literary works and authors, I can learn more about them.
If I can earn affiliate income, I will be able to buy more and more books I like without worrying about the price.
I can practice web design.
I can practice programming.
I can practice writing (English and Japanese).
I can have a reason to read more books.
I can create my own room on the Internet. (I can’t keep a lot of books in my two-bedroom apartment because my two energetic children would destroy it.)