An Italian writer decided to use his daily commute to and from work for something more useful than reading rubbish free papers, having a snooze or staring out the window - he wrote a book using his mobile phone.
IT professional Roberto Bernocco took advantage of his travel time by writing a 384-page science fiction novel, Compagni di Viaggo (Fellow Travellers), on his Nokia mobile phone using the phone's T9 typing system.
"It really was a time management issue. He had a book in him and really wanted to write it but found he just didn't have the time to sit and do it on a computer," Gail Jordan, PR director at the book's publishers, Lulu.com, told Reuters .
Bernocco wrote his book in standard Italian rather than text-message shorthand, dividing the book into short paragraphs. He then saved them on his mobile phone and downloaded them onto his home computer for proofreading and editing when he got home from work in the evening.
"Only a few years ago I would have struggled to find both the time and the publisher to enable me to create this book," Bernocco said in a statement. "Thanks to my Nokia and Lulu, I am now proud to be a published author."
"The fact that this gentleman had this - no pun intended - novel idea to do it off his phone and found it so simple to then upload it on our site and create a book speaks exactly to what we do, we are time saving for people," Jordan said.
Bernocco's book can be bought from Lulu.com for $17.38 (£8.54).
