I went back and looked at my manuscript database. “The Rain and the Rainbows” (the manuscript in question) had been sent out twenty-seven times. Nine periodicals had accepted and printed the piece. Eighteen periodicals had either returned it or did respond at all. I don’t know if that’s par for the course, or a birdie or a bogey (go here for golfing term definitions), but it doesn’t seem too bad to me. But my favorite entries are the “Requested” ones.

Apparently, editors of take-home church papers or leisure reading church publications actually read similar publications from other denominations. I mentioned last week that readers from one denomination aren’t likely to read the material from another denomination. On three occasions, I had requests from editors saying that they had read the piece in another church publication and would like to use it in their own. Could they purchase reprint rights, please? “Of course you can!” And, when one particular editor requested use of the piece, I said yes and didn’t even remind him that I had actually sent it to him, a year or so earlier, and he had sent it back with a “no thanks” note. No reason to be antagonistic.

And, editors being who they are, and with their own word and space limits, and their own denominational Bible version preferences, the piece is sometimes, or, always, a little bit different at each printing. But, here it is, in case you’d like to know what I got paid a whole dollar for, a few weeks ago.

The Rain and the Rainbows

For the second time in twelve hours, I carried my bags to the airline check-in desk. An unexpected closing of Dallas/Fort Worth airport the previous evening had meant an extra night in Nashville and re-booking on the far-too-early first morning flight. Rain was still falling in Texas, but the airport had re-opened, and we took off.
The sun was rising in a clear Tennessee sky, but soon, I barely could see the ground through the clouds, which became thicker and thicker as we approached DFW. We descended through the gray fog, and rain pelted the windows as we landed. I dreaded the rest of my flight home. A little 15-passenger commuter plane carried travelers from DFW to the small airport in my central Texas town. Sometimes bouncy on nice days, in rainy, windy weather, it was more like a bad amusement park ride. The vibrations and noise of the propellers prevented even a short nap on the 45-minute flight.
The storm clouds were unusually low, heavy with rain. So, instead of flying below the cloud cover, as usual, we rose up into the blue sky above.
I leaned back against the seat, too tired even to try reading.
Then, briefly, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a little rainbow. I looked more intently. Nothing there. I imagined it. But, there it was again. Then gone again. Now there were three. Then only one.
I watched the most amazing little sky show. There were scores of tiny arcs of rainbows, appearing, disappearing, re-appearing. Did the angle of the morning sun cause this? Or was it our closeness to the tops of the waterlogged storm clouds? Does this always happen when it rains?
How did I never know this? When it rains underneath the dark clouds, up above, the sky is full of rainbows.
I watched until the plane headed down through the misty clouds. We left the sunny sky, and raindrops again covered the small windows. At the terminal, we passengers jogged through puddles from the plane to the building. Damp from the rain, we waited for our luggage. The baggage handlers, the airline personnel, and the car rental agents were as gloomy as the weather outside.
They just don’t realize, I thought. It may be dismal here, and all we can see is the dreary weather. But up above the clouds, the sun is shining, and the sky is full of rainbows.
In Matthew, Jesus says “the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field.” For me, it’s more like a rainstorm. I may be drenched and feeling weary and waterlogged, but the rainbows are up there shining. I know, because I’ve seen them.

Things are different now, in most areas of publishing. So many print periodicals have folded and those that are still publishing are more selective. And, in the religious market, most have theme lists, which they gladly share with any writer who is interested. But there are hardly any who will just willy-nilly purchase something they might like, thinking that there will eventually be a place they can use it. So now, I think I’ll go see what the Mennonites are wanting in the next few months. They usually purchase what I send them.

There are systems in place for hopeful freelance writers who want to submit their writing to editors.

Publications like Writer’s Market and Christian Writer’s Market and Writer’s Digest magazine have information

Writers can look for submission guidelines with word counts, editors’ names, and web sites to discover theme lists for various periodicals and book publishers. Back in the olden days, pre-Internet, submissions had to go by snail mail, and there was a system for getting manuscripts to the proper places. First, count the number of pages in a manuscript (and also an author’s cover letter). Then check the user-friendly chart in Writer’s Market to see how much postage you needed. If a writer wanted the manuscript returned, just in case it was rejected (not a positive thought, but if a writer wanted to submit it to a different periodical or book publisher, then they’d have to re-type it), then the writer needed to include a return envelope with their own name and address and the proper postage for the return trip. And be sure the out-going envelope included enough postage to cover the weight of the manuscript and the return envelope. The Writer’s Market chart included both those postage needs. Sometimes I got manuscripts back; sometimes they seemed to come back faster than I thought possible, if someone actually opened the envelope and spent more than thirty seconds actually reading what I had so carefully written. Sometimes, I got the return envelope back, but it had an acceptance letter and a check!

For many years, however, most magazine editors want things e-mailed, and most book publishers want the synopsis and sample chapter(s) that way, too. Maybe they even want entire books e-mailed, which would take lots of time, I suppose, but it’s a good thing to save on paper and printer ink.

I wouldn’t have been able to say when the last manuscript I sent off the snail-mail way got stamped and mailed away. But, I was a little startled a couple of months ago when a manila envelope showed up in my mail box. I recognized it right away by the string of stamps running across the top. The mailing label, addressed to this house and with the same return address, was a sign of a submission’s included return envelope. I was mystified. I did not remember, at all, sending out a submission that way.

I opened the envelope and was startled, and pleased, to see writer’s copies. Apparently they liked what I had sent, and had printed it in the May 21, 2017 issue of an adult take-home paper. There was an acceptance letter and two copies of the paper. The letter said “Thank you” for the article and “enclosed” were my complimentary copies. And, yay, my payment was also enclosed. Hmm. Where was my payment? I picked up everything and shook the papers. And, yes, indeedy, my payment dropped out.

Yep. That dollar bill. That’s my payment. The postage I had put on this envelope was  $1.05. (And they’d had to add 14 cents to it, postage having gone up since I’d mailed it in the first place.) So, there must have been at least $1.05 on the original envelope, maybe a little more, since the return envelope was in there, too. So, I lost money on the deal. I looked back at the database I keep of manuscripts I submit, and I couldn’t find the information. I searched some more, and found a copy of the cover letter I’d sent with the original submission. February 10, 2010. The postmark on the envelope I got was March 3, 2017. So, seven years they kept the piece. Well, a little less. I don’t know how long the choosing, editing, printing process is. But, I can pretty much guarantee that it’s less than seven years.

Whatever your task, work heartily, as serving the Lord and not men,

Colossians 3:23 (Revised Standard Version)

This particular piece has a long history. I sent it to the first magazine in February 1994. I got an acceptance letter in Feburary 1995. Once I’d sold it for “first rights,” and it was published, I could send it other places (in non-competing markets) with the information that it had first appeared in Catholic Digest in March 1995. Parents’ Magazine and Parenting are examples of competing magazines. The same people are apt to read them. But, in the religious market, the Baptists are unlikely to read things published by the Catholics and the Methodists are not apt to read things by the Jewish press. They certainly might, but they’re not as likely to read them consistently. Over the past many years, I’ve earned over $300.00 from that one piece. Most of the periodicals pay a bit more than a dollar.