There is no money in the short story market.

[fasttense]

I've written short stories (science fiction and horror) all my life. I'm addicted to it. I've had several published and have been really disappointed in how little money I made. I know, I know, I'm not in it for the money but $100 to $200 for a story I have worked on for a month is ridiculous. Two to five cents a word does not provide for a decent income. I've tried to write a book but I got bored with working just one idea for well over a year.

I'm at the point were I'm tempted to change to mainstream fiction because their markets seem to pay better. Well, I think I'll try sending a couple to Playboy. At least they pay better and they did publish Stephen King when he was a nobody. Sigh.... what happened to the short story market? It use to be lucrative.

[DavidDvorkin]

1. Television

I think that TV fills the niche that short stories used to.

After I sold my first novel, I turned my focus to novel-length fiction, with stories as an occasional diversion.

Not that novels have made me rich, either. :)

[petgoat]

2. It takes me six years to write a novel.

I've been trying to reduce that by writing shorter novels; so far
that doesn't speed things up at all.

But it might work for you. Why not try writing novellas? I think
that form--a substantial narrative that can be read in one evening--
could have commercial potential in our frantic world.

I don't know who has time to read novels any more. Let alone patience.

[DavidDvorkin]

4. There not much of a novella market

either nowadays. All of the shorter-than-novel lengths flourished in the print magazines that have largely evaporated. The only area where such markets is growing is the new e-magazines. Some of them are quite good and pay reasonably well, but they don't seem to have a good life expectancy.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. You do not do the shorts for the pay

you do them for the exposure

When you write a novel you can honestly tell the Agent (and you need one to sell a novel), hey I have credits here, here and here... that will also help to sell your stuff to a publisher... shorts means a fanbase

[HamdenRice]

5. There is a lot of money in the short story market

But it's only in one tiny part of the market, and only the people at the top of the market make the money. The people who make money write "literary fiction" -- the kind of fiction published by the New Yorker, Harpers and Atlantic. The New Yorker is famous for paying enough per published short story that New Yorker short story writers have actually made decent livings. Moreover, as the market has changed, there are spin off means of making money from short story writing. Short stories published in the top commercial literary fiction market are often optioned as story ideas for movies. For example, "Brokeback Mountain" was originally a New Yorker short story by Annie Proux; The Sissy Spacek movie, "In the Bedroom," was a short story by Andre Dubus, "Killings." The short story magazine Zoetrope was founded by Francis Ford Coppola specifically to find short story material that could be turned into movies. But the hidden part of the industry is that many short story writers are paid a lot of option money for stories that are never made into movies. The film industry is so starved of ideas that they buy up the "ideas" behind short stories just to have these ideas in their "idea bank."

Also, if you can publish a piece of literary fiction in a few high end commercial publications, you are pretty much guaranteed a teaching job, an agent and an advance on a novel. Dave Eggers was pretty much a nobody when he published an excerpt from "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" in the New Yorker and received an advance.

People who succeed at writing treat it as a creative business -- creative yes, but a business.

Also, it is much more difficult to make money writing what the industry calls "genre fiction" -- science fiction, mystery, fantasy, crime and romance. It seems like there is a huge audience for good literary fiction and few who can do it well. You can make money doing romance novels in series and there is a lottery-like chance of success in the crime/mystery market. But it's pretty much impossible to make money in science fiction and fantasy unless you are willing to write screen plays.

[fasttense]

6. Thanks for the info.

The one nice thing about posting to a not so popular forum is your post is still on the first page when you go looking for solace from another rejection slip.

Your post just confirmed what I suspected. I think I will try my hand at "literary fiction". Perhaps, I could make it to the top of the market, or at least win a contest that pays more for short stories.

Is this tighter market due to the consolidation of media outlets or is it simply a result of changes in reading habits? One poster explains the vanishing shorts market as a switch from reading shorts to watching television. I'm not sure that is the reason though. There are several writers who made it big by first selling their short stories while TV was around.

Either way, I need to get back to writing before Christmas gets here. Thanks for the input.