Writing for teens is a tough market especially when the genre is faith based. Also, young people by nature tend to be skeptical. After all, a teen’s life spans a mere five to six years and they are not interested in reading stories that try to “fix” them. The teen culture is something teens inherited, not invented, so faith-based writers need to “show” teens the relevance of the message and how to respond and apply to everyday life. In addition, when writing for the faith-based market, you need to “show” a young teen the significance of a particular reality in their life or nothing will change for them. Teens want to know about the “Do’s” not the “Don’t’s.”
Some top intense issues for teens are social justice, love, environment and poverty. The teen culture as a whole becomes more intelligent each generation and they want to impact the world in a tangible way. Faith based writers have an opportunity to “show” (there’s that word again) teens Christ and not just talk about Him.
If you do a search on “religious magazines” you will get over a million hits. The Christian Writing market is larger than you may think but no one has time to research all the viable publications. To get started searching, I have listed some links to a few publishers and magazine markets in addition to some religious curricula markets.
Books
Augsburg Books www.augsburg.com. Christian
Behrman House: www.behrmanhouse.com. Jewish
Bethany House: www.bethanyhouse.com. Evangelical Christian
Deseret Book co: www.deseretbook.com. Latter-day Saints
Moody Publishers: www.moodypublishers.com Conservative Christian
Paulist Press: www.paulistpress.com Catholic
Magazines
Connected: http://connected.christianrecord.org, Christian Record Services for the Blind
Focus on the Family: www.focusonthefamily.com Evangelical Christian
Higher Things: www.higherthings.org. Lutheran
InTeen: www.urbanministries.com. African American, Christian
Randall House: www.randallhouse.com. Baptist
Sharing the Victory: www.sharingthevictory.com. Fellowship of Christian Athletes
Religious Curricula
Congregational Ministries Publishing: www.pcusa.org/curriculum
David C. Cook: www.davidccook.com Non denominational Christian
Gather ‘Round: www.gatherround.org
Group Publishing: www.group.com Nondenominational
Review and Herald Publishing: www.rhpa.org Seventh-day Adventist
Urban Ministries: www.urbanministries.com African American community
Write it down,
Carma
