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In order to keep with continuity with the other two in the series the font is pretty well set. The scene is set in a dystopian world called Night Arena, a place where justice is meted out gladiator style in a nighttime hunger games kind of setting. It is supposed to be dark, but perhaps this goes too far?

In answer to your question amy, this woman was on my newsletter subscriber list.  She agreed to post a review for an Advanced Reading Copy of book 2. I told everyone that if they found typos or other glaring issues to send them.  This is what I got back from her.  In retrospect much of what she says is helpful.  She just comes across as a snob. There isn't one way to do this. Much of what she says about dialogue tags is poppycock and holding J. K Rowling up as the next Ernest Hemingway is also telling. In fact, if she paid attention she would notice that Harry Potter himself is a pretty boring character at least to me. I have been scanning through all three of my manuscripts for some of the issues she brought up so in the end her message was helpful. She is definitely off my ARC list for book three though. As to fixing my double spaces after periods I just did a simple find and replace all in word. It took 60 seconds.

Got a review back from a fellow author basically excoriating me for what an amateur I am.  It is hard to take these things in context and not get defensive.  I know criticism is helpful should assist me in improving.  The problem is, what to take with a grain of salt and what to internalize.  I do appreciate the time and effort of anyone who reads my stories.   Anyway, I thought I would post the comments in case anyone else can learn from them. 
This email is difficult to write. I commend you for the task before you that you have begun: two books out and a third nearing completion in what looks to be an epic tale. Ironically, it's the kind of story I like to read, although I prefer a female protagonist. Since you have 8 daughters, I'm surprised at your choice of a male protagonist.

But your book is not one I would read after checking out the Look Inside feature. I don't know any other way to say this, so I'll just blurt it out. I never got past chapter two. Robert, there is so much wrong with your book. Of course, there is a great deal that's right, too. But the errors (and we're not just talking about typos) are everywhere. I am attaching the Word doc where you can see my comments and "corrections." Some things might be a matter of personal taste, but if I were you, I would enroll in a writing class at a community college. That way you will see that this isn't just my opinion. Or spring for an editor from, say, BookBaby. You don't have to use them to publish.

Be aware there are 4 types of book editing: (1) The Big-Picture Edit (developmental, structural or substantive editing), (2) The Paragraph-Level Edit (stylistic or line editing), (3) The Sentence-Level Edit (copyediting), and (4) The Word-Level Edit (proofreading).

Frankly, many of the contextual errors you make are those made by most beginning writers. And anyone who reads a lot of books will see your inexperience right off. In part, the following is WHY I couldn't ready anymore. Most editors would have stopped on page one. This isn't a complete list. (I didn't want to totally blow you out of the water or just piss you off.) Let's just say it's like the top layer of what needs fixing.

1) Using VERY to modify words that are strong enough to stand alone. Very is a throw-away word and has little to no meaning.
2) Using descriptions and actions as though they are dialogue tags.
3) Using too many dialogue tags when only two people are "on stage" talking. If your characters have unique "voices" we should be able to tell who is talking, either by WHAT they say or HOW they say it.
4) Using tags other than "said," "replied," "asked," and "responded." Tags, when you MUST use them, should be invisible, so the reader doesn't even notice them. Throwing in a "he queried" or a "she chided" suddenly turns a spotlight on them. Not a good idea.
5) Using 2 spaces between sentences. I know most of us learned to hit the space bar twice, but such things evolve over time. We use fewer commas now and since printing is digital, all those extra spaces add up.
6) Your book is longer than the norm. Yes, the Harry Potter books were huge after the first couple. But you do not have command of the English language quite like JK Rowling, who is brilliant at putting words together on a page to hold the interest of her readers--even young readers.
7) Your characters, in the first two chapters, are cardboard. They have zero personality, except (sort of) the black girl with the ponytail on the side of her head that your protagonist mentally criticizes, BUT she is simply bad-tempered. Your protagonist is your first-person storyteller, and he's not any different than any other adolescent male, although I love the fact that he LOVES to read. But one trait does not build a believable character.

You're probably saying, "Well, if you'd read the whole book, you'd know." But your reader wants to know and root for your point-of-view character almost from the get-go. I'm quite sure you know this character yourself from the inside out. The trouble is, it's not on the page. That's the hardest lesson to learn. Getting what you see in your head actually on the page so that your reader sees and hears and feels what you do is what it's all about.

I wish you well on this. And I will not be reviewing your book so as not to skew your review average. I've read that even a 3-star takes you down quite a bit. I have the .mobi version, which I will load onto my Kindle. And I got Book 1 since it's free. Maybe if I read them without my editing hat on I will forgive some of your writer faux pas. Who knows?

Again, I wish you well. You have accomplished what 83% of Americans surveyed said they wanted to do "someday." You've already done that TWICE. Now you just need to get the words right. All the best.

P.S. - The people who tell you how wonderful your writing is will likely NOT be writers. How do I know this? In a former life, I was a singer. People always, and I do mean always, told me how wonderful I sang. I knew, however, none of them were singers. None of them had a clue if it was good or not. They only knew that they LIKED what I did. If I was on top of my game, they wouldn't have known the difference if I'd fallen flat on my face musically. The ones whose opinions mattered were other singers. THEY knew what was good and what wasn't.

So take this writer's words for how they are meant, to encourage, to teach and to help you become the writer you are meant to be.

Congrats amy on getting this close to the en...

Thanks amy, I'll post a working title here so it isn't easily gettable.  That's a word, right?

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am diving headlong into marketing my books starting with a subscriber list.  From what I have learned, the only way to make a living as an indie writer is to build your subscriber list as big as you can get it and then keep them engaged with your work.  I started my list a little over 2 weeks ago and as of this morning I just passed over 400 subscribers.  I am giving away book 1 as motivation for signing up.  I started by posting the news to my 1,000 Facebook friends then tweeting to my 1,400 followers.  This started bringing in around 4 or 5 a day for about a week.  Then this week I have entered a cross promo with 160 other fantasy and sci fi authors and my list has just exploded.  I got more than 100 just yesterday.  The promo runs to the 20th so I can wait to see where I end up by then.  I will keep you guys up to date on my progress as I navigate the business of writing.  My goal is to go full time with it as quickly as I can.

I will be  getting the opportunity to talk about writing with some middle schoolers in February thanks to an invite form one of the teachers.  I will be discussing writing as well as giving a little synopsis of my books.  I have decided to run a contest with the kids where they think up a character, their name and attributes and I will pick a winner and include them in my next book.  Any other ideas for making a visit like this cool?

It could be.  If you do review my first chapter please offer any suggestions on that front.  I am getting so caught up in the marketing aspects of writing that it can be easy to let the important parts slide.  I fear that will always be the case with me.  I tend to obsess over whatever is in front of me.  Every morning right now I wake up thinking about what I am going to do to get my books in front of more people.  I need to be thinking about what I am going to do with my story.  It is a delicate balance, one that has so far eluded me.  But with just one review from amy on my first chapter I am feeling drawn back to writing a better story.  That's where this forum is really priceless.  It sure seems to be dying though.  A few years back when I first joined we created review buddy groups with 40 or 50 people just in our little group.  Where did everybody go?

I just released book 2 in my series on Friday and thought I would chime in on some of the things I have been doing. 

1. I ran a free promo on Kindle for book 1 in my series.  I also submitted my book to My Book Cave who also promoted it for free for the same period.  This got my ranking up to number 2 in the Free Fantasy category.  My page reads peaked at just over 1200 on
Saturday.  I have also run a couple of smaller promos this week with BKNights for 5 bucks a pop. 

2.  My first book is now back to .99 cents on Amazon but free elsewhere so I am hoping Amazon will price match and make it permafree.  I bought a Bargain Booksy promo for December 2 so I will be interested to see how that pays out.  It cost me $40 for the promo.  Even though I probably won't make my money back it doesn't matter, I am trying to find a readership to get my name out there for future releases in my series.

3.  This is the single most important thing I've done.  I started a Mailchimp account and tied it to my website to get people to sign up for my newsletter.  Then I did an Instafreebie promotion giving away my first book in exchange for signing up for my newsletter.  In the past 5 days I have signed up 15 new subscribers to my newsletter and sold 3 books from people who got my first for free. 

4. In conjunction with step 3 I have signed up on Instafreebie for 2 huge cross promo opportunities to market to other authors with much larger lists.  This is how you go from dozens on your subscriber list to hundreds and then thousands.  An email list is the single most important money making tool for an author.  You literally can't have too large of a list.  Many indie authors can move into the top 100 with a book by simply announcing its release to their lists.  If you don't have a list start one.  Give away your first in a series or a short story or novelette if they will sign up.  Trust me it is worth it. 

5. The holy grail of book promotion tools is Bookbub.  They are expensive and reject you dozens of times and are very particular about what they will market but they are worth every last penny.  Authors come on to the kindle boards just to celebrate getting accepted for a Bookbub promo.  If you can at all afford it Bookbub is worth its weight in gold.

I hope this is helpful.  I am still learning and adding to what I do but so far what I'm doing is working.  PS: Keep writing!  Nothing sells your books better than more books and the nice thing is that the more you write, the better you'll get.  PSS: Make sure to get a professional cover.  Nothing kills your marketing efforts like a crappy cover.  PSSS: Pay someone to edit your book.  If you have easy mistakes in your work people won't buy the rest of your library which is where authors actually make their cash.

I forgot to add the Amazon link to my second book.  You can find it here.  https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Master-Bo … 8PDJ2W5SQB

So I have been running two free promos for my first book, Gift of the Master, and this morning it hit number 2 in my category for Amazon!  I am pretty excited to see so many downloads off of two free promos that didn't cost me a dime.  I am now writing a short story to give away for my newsletter.  I am using Mailchimp and instafreebie together to manage the promo.  I'll let everyone know how it works.  I have been getting an education in the marketing side of this business.  My goal is to be writing exclusively in 5 years.   The business is changing so rapidly right now it can be tough to keep up with it.  In some ways self publishing is exploding all over, in other ways it is dying.  The key is to be out ahead of it.  I think the number one thing to do is to build your email subscriber list.  Whether you are self pubbing or going traditional with contract in hand.  An email list is the only way to build up a consistent enough income to be able to do this for a living if that is your goal.  I will be work shopping my short story here so I'll let everyone know when it is up.  I am also about a quarter done with my third book which I haven't posted here yet but will after.  As I said, I have been educating myself on the business side of writing.  If any of you have questions, I will be happy to answer them if I can.