Saturday, March 06, 2004
Glossy `Biblemag' Hopes to Lure Teen Boys Into the Good Book
Sex advice, music reviews and tips on looking good ... no, it's not the latest issue of GQ or Maxim. It's the Bible -- for the mind of a teen-age guy.
"Refuel" is the New Testament that looks like an entertainment magazine, and it hits secular and religious bookstores in April. Featuring quizzes and dating hints alongside the Word of God, Refuel caters to young Christian men who aren't otherwise reading Scripture.
"It really was birthed from research we did that said teens don't read the Bible because it's too big and too intimidating," said Laurie Whaley, a spokesperson for Thomas Nelson Inc., the publisher of Refuel. "We removed the intimidation factor, so it's fun -- and it's a Bible."
Refuel comes on the heels of the Revolve Bible, a Bible-magazine published for adolescent girls last year by Thomas Nelson. Revolve's magazine format, complete with glossy pages and pictures of smiling young teens on the cover, was the first "Biblemag" created. After only six months in stores, it boasted higher sales than any other Bible sold in 2003. Now, Refuel is poised to dominate the hard-to-please teen male market.
"We've had so many requests for it, which really surprised me," said Kate Etue, managing editor of Revolve and Refuel. "We literally had hundreds of e-mails from guys telling us they were reading Revolve, and asking for a Revolve for boys."
Girls, sex and dating were the top things guys said they most wanted biblical advice about when surveyed by Refuel's editors. Experts and interviews with teen girls offer some answers, all with a scriptural base. "We don't shy away from things the church won't talk about -- drugs, oral sex, suicide, tattoos," Whaley said. "Teens from across the world are asking about these things."
Some experts see these Bibles as simple evangelism tools Christian teens can bring to their peers. "My instinct is that kids who are interested in their faith will maybe look at it and show it to their friends," said Christian Smith, director of the National Study on Youth and Religion at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, whose research on teens and religion prompted Thomas Nelson to create Revolve and Refuel.
With Revolve still selling more than five times the rate publishers anticipated and online pre-orders already mounting for Refuel, Thomas Nelson expects strong sales for its newest Biblemag.
Other companies are catching on. Zondervan, the world's largest publisher of Bibles and Christian books, created two new teen Bibles, "Revolution" for guys and "True Images" for girls, both targeting the same 13-17 age range as Revolve and Refuel. Published last November, the Bibles (which are printed in traditional, not magazine, format) are enjoying higher-than-anticipated success by "playing off of" Revolve's high sales, said Zondervan President Paul Caminiti.
"There's been a kind of convergence, and together they're doing quite well," he said. "I don't think their success made ours successful. The end result has been a lot of attention, and we're pleased with it."
Zondervan developed the Bibles for media-saturated teen minds, with features like "challenge notes"--informative sidebars in the Bible's pages that resemble instant messages. The Bibles each have Web sites with resources on issues like abortion and sexually transmitted diseases.
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