I will consider short stories or short story pairings in any imprint at Musa for stand-alone e-books.
My thought is this: with e-readers gaining popularity and so many people reading on their phones at lunch or on commutes, the short story is the PERFECT medium for a lot of the e-reading market. So with our short story program, we're focusing on high quality shorter fiction that will satisfy that part of the market. Also, I think it's a great idea to allow writers of short fiction to have the opportunity to earn money from their work that's not just one and done. At five cents a word (pro rates and what we pay at Penumbra) a 3500 word short story earns an author $175 US dollars. Then, it's really hard to sell that story again because the first rights are burned and first rights are what every publisher wants to have.
But if an author, over the course of a three year contract, can sell 100 downloads of their short story a YEAR, they'll exceed that payment amount.
Now, I do not want anyone to get me wrong here. As with novella or novel-length fiction, a writer needs to weigh their options carefully. Which is more important--the longevity of a piece? The all at once payment? Being part of a prestigious magazine or having cover art and editorial assistance? These are questions that I cannot and will not answer for a writer. Those questions, writers must answer for themselves.
Right now, all our short stories are cross-sold between the imprint that hosts their genre and our Polyhymnia imprint, which is for short stories, serials, anthologies and collections. That way, a story has two ways to sell--and the Polyhymnia imprint will be like one-stop shopping for short fiction. And, with the Homer Eon Flint collection beginning its release on January 15, I'm anticipating a lot of traffic in that imprint. Since we're releasing all his lost works and unpublished MSS in addition to his well-known classic works, and everything is going through Polyhymnia in our Musa Gold line, I think short stories attached to the same main page will benefit. Flint was an early pulp fiction writer--and we're using him as a model for our short fiction lines. Personally, I would *love* to see serial stories make a strong combat. One of AW's own, Gini Koch, is doing some serial sci fi and paranormal for us (under various names besides her best-known one) and she's selling very well.
So we shall see. Remember all the times throughout your literary past where you prefaced a sentence with, "If I was a publisher, I'd *insert blahblahblah here*!"
Well, if nothing else, I never get to make THAT comment again.
tongue), I'm pleased to say I have signed with Musa for their Euterpe imprint. 
