To cut a long story short - publishing short fiction

I'm blogging over at Authors Electric today, about the short story publishing scene for writers and readers. There's a new competition for crime writers and a free story . . . 

'The short list for the BBC National Short Story Award has just been announced and it's a shocker!  There are no men on it... (David Gilmour take note)  At £15,000 this is one of the most valuable prizes in literature, and it emphasises the short story's status as a literary art form.  The high value we place on the short story is a big contrast with its lack of appeal as a commercial publishing prospect.  Fewer and fewer publishers are accepting them and then only as a gesture towards their best-selling authors.  Newspaper and magazine outlets have also dwindled.

But, readers like short stories and writers like writing them.  The result is a flourishing Indie-publishing scene for short fiction - not just in book form, but also in E-zines and blogs and Facebook groups.  People are reading Flash fiction on their mobile phones and downloading stories onto their I-pads from sites where you can read any kind of fiction from erotic to murderous, and cozy to experimental.  There are markets for the short story everywhere on the internet.  Unfortunately very few of them pay anything . . .' (To read more click here)