Many people (including myself) believe short stories will lead readers to novels...especially in SF and Fantasy areas. I wish I had time to go grab some links, because there was an article with a really good mix of authors and editors discussing the purpose of short stories recently.
The most popular magazines have a readership of a few thousand, I believe. Which is peanuts in terms of novel readership. And a couple different editors mentioned, to my Clarion class, that they barely have time to read their own submissions, let along going trolling through short stories for new authors.
My conclusion after talking to several pros is, at this point the markets are mostly disjunct. You can get
attention with a short story if it's an award-winner. Otherwise, all it shows a novel editor is that you can publish something.
In my book, the purpose of a short story is to be a wonderful piece of art, to push the limits of genre and expectations, and find beauty in its conciseness that we cannot find in the wonderful sprawl of a novel. It's not a way to make a living, and it's probably not more than a tiny little toe in the door.
In our genre I'd guess it would be a much better investment of time to go to Viable Paradise, if one is looking for ways to get a foot in the door as a novelist
