First the cover art and design is crude at best. I am guilty of this lacking element to my book cover, not owning good cover creation software (any of which seems expensive) and having no artistic illustrative talent (the hiring of which could also become prohibitively expensive). I have ideas for book covers but lack the innate talent or professional resources outside of self to make those ideas into reality.
Next, I tend to describe places and persons that supposedly to some do not need it, especially secondary characters. I also have overly long sentences in many places, but don't recognize the problem as I write or review them. I had attributed such elements to just being part of my particular style. But if it puts some readers off, maybe I should reconsider the complaints.
I also apparently need some editorial guidance and beta readers to show me where things in the text require changes. I confess my own editorial and proofreading skills are pitiful at times. I can see big problems but turn around and miss small erroneous details to my embarrassment. I suppose the book giveaway was an expensive version (out of my pocket to some extent) of a beta reading effort. I should've just sent electronic files of the manuscript out for such purposes last autumn.
In short, I need some sort of professional editorial guidance, something the publishing industry sometimes provided to promising authors once upon a time. But with today's editors forced to concentrate on the business rather than creative side of writing, and with no-talent celebrities famous for nothing more likely to sell books than some obscure undiscovered struggling author, I have no access to such services unless paying steeply out of my own diminished pockets with money I cannot spare now.
It seems I need to ask myself one harsh question: "Do I have any future or chance for success as a professional fiction writer in an industry becoming more bottom line-minded in the past two decades?"
The only answer I could honestly give today to that central, soul-searching question is: "I still don't know."