Are Short Stories a Waste of Time?

I've been reviewing the feedback I received from reviewers of Tales of Woe and Wonder. The stories most people mentioned as liking or memorable are the longer stories. The most common complaint is that some of the stories need to be longer or even stretched into a novel. I'm glad the reviewers want more, but there's a problem here, a contradiction in the "short story industry." If you try to sell stories to magazines or anthologies, you quickly run up against word count limits and anyone who has tried to sell stories will probably confirm the adage that it's easier to sell a shorter story than a longer story. There are practical reasons for this desire for shorter stories on the part of publishers. They have a limited budget (if they pay by the word) and limited space. You don't want to publish an anthology or magazine with only one or two stories. But readers seem to want longer stories with more plot and character development.

What do you do? Write shorter stories that sell but with which most readers are dissatisfied or write longer stories that readers like but you can't sell. I think the answer is to write novels to sell to publishers, novellas to market on Kindle, and long stories in the 5-10K range that you can market as Kindle shorts. I think you can succeed with shorter stories if they are part of a series with recurring characters.

Am I going to quit writing short stories? No. I like short stories, but I'm going to focus on longer stories and linked stories. There are publishers emerging that focus on selling long short stories to the Kindle market. And in honor of NaNoWriMo, I'm going to spend 75% of my writing time this month on a novel. I have three in various states so it's time to pick one and finish it (as soon as I complete this short story that I'm editing).

I would love to hear what fellow writers and readers have to say on this topic.