I have yet to have anyone convince me that writing a short story hasn’t become a waste of time.
It appears to me that all the paying markets for short stories have become closed-loop systems where the only people buying and reading them are those who are trying to get published in them.
The general reading public (or at least the small part of it I’ve sampled) aren’t that interested in short stories, and if they are, they prefer to read them in anthologies.
Books, I’ve decided, rule. Even if they’re just electronic.
Speaking of which, I just subscribed to Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show on my Kindle. If there’s anything that can save magazine markets for short stories, it’s going to be an eReader.
Why, suddenly, did I do that?
Well, because I sent them a story, that’s why.
Actually I’ve always liked Orson – his stories used to blow me away, especially back in the days of Omni magazine – and plus, the publication is edited by Edmund R. Schubert, who I published on Dark Energy SF. Not that this means anything. Chances are still overwhelmingly in favor of me getting a rejection slip.
Yes, I still get those.
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