Two publishers are reducing some Christian classics to bite- and even nibble-sized portions to introduce them to a new audience.

Barbour Publishing, which has published classic titles for almost 30 years, has cut the works of authors like John Bunyan and Charles Sheldon by up to half for a new budget series, while Regal Books has reduced some of A.W. Tozer's writings to a sentence in a social media campaign.

Barbour's Abridged Christian Classics--promoted as "Quick Reads. Lasting Impact."--launched in February with half a dozen titles, including Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, John Foxe's Foxe's Book of Martyrs and Sheldon's In His Steps. Spanish editions of the Bunyan and Sheldon books are to follow in July.

Priced at $2.99 each, the titles run to between 35,000 and 40,000 words, with some of the language updated, and can be read in two to three hours.

Meanwhile, "TozerAW" has amassed almost 7,000 Twitter followers since Regal--soon to release a new title by the author--launched the postings in November, said Senior Editor Steven Lawson.

"Twitter seems well suited for quotes, though we are careful to be sure that the quote conveys the context from which it was drawn," he said. "The tweets are designed to be inspirational, uplifting and challenging, and keeping true to Tozer's principles of conveying truth in bold ways and not succumbing to entertainment or worldliness."

Click here to read more and additional exclusive news in the July digital edition of Christian Retailing.

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