Original work has no floor and no ceiling. You can reach essentially zero readers or millions.

The Sundering is a world spanning event that creates ripples all across the Realms. The books in the series are connected in that they take place against that backdrop, showing different aspects of it. The stories, however, are not sequels or intertwined, though there are some Easter Eggs across books.

Cale is my signature character in the Forgotten Realms. The most popular character I've written. He's a thief, an assassin, and eventually, a priest who stabs his own god in the chest. Always trying to slip his past, but never succeeding. Dark dude. Brooding dude. Born killer. But honorable, still.

I loved The Weird (one of the stories in it inspired Blackalley in Discourse).

Shared world has done some world building and brings (in the case of FR and SW) a big audience. With your own work, you're more creatively free. In a way, the shared world stuff has a high floor but a ceiling.

Fantasy allows for less rigorous worldbuilding and more vigorous exploration of moral questions. Sci-fi is opp.

With young kids (I have four including the newborn) times passes weirdly for me.