Do Short Stories Make Money for Writers?

How long is a short story?

Someone challenged me to write a short story per day for a week. Authors like to prove how fast our fingers can move, much like gunslingers in the Old West would call out other shooters to check out their pistol skills.

I’ve been in a 100k words in a month challenge, the always fun NANOWRIMO in November where everybody is encourated to write their first novel, or third, or more.

And I’ve even challenged myself to get work done, to finish faster and get stories out there, especially when I get an email or review from a reader who says they’re waiting!

But a wordslinger called me out on writing shorts for a week.

The challenge was, “Can you write a short story per day for seven days?”

I thought, man, that would be fun to try.

Especially if I got out four pre-quels in the Z series, and 3 sci fi shorts that have been lingering on my to do list.

But then I had a thought. I have over a dozen novels that are just 10k words from being done, but exist as stand alones, meaning they are not in a series.

My stand alone titles don’t do as well at finding readers. Take Holy War for example. Fast fun, action packed about Templar Knights fighting in a narrow mountain pass against invading Saracens. It gets read about 5 times per month.