My Thoughts on my First Editorial Book Review from BlueInk

A few days ago, I received my first official "editorial" review of my book, Get After It: Seven Inspirational Stories to Find Your Inner Strength When It Matters Most, from BlueInk Review, a review company based in Colorado. I met BlueInk representatives at the 2017 BookBaby Independent Authors Conference in Philadelphia. I had a bad taste in my mouth about Kirkus Reviews from talking with a few people, and BlueInk seemed to be a less expensive option with good people working there.I sent a hardcopy of my book to BlueInk the day after I received my books in the mail from my publishing company and thought it would take about five weeks. To my surprise, it took about three. The letter, which I pasted below, hit on a few key things:First, the review says that the book lives up to its title, which is very important to me. I wanted people to be motivated and inspired by the stories, as those themes were the underlying ideas that seemed to flow through each. Simple as that.Second, the review states that my storytelling is the book's true strength. This made me really happy; I've always felt I was a good storyteller, but now I had an outside assessment that thought the same thing. This part of the review mentions my "youthful folly," which is completely understandable as many of the stories take place during my college and early 20-something years. I know I was foolish in some places, but that's part of growing up.Third, the review mentions the inconsistency of my lessons learned. This is a point well-taken, and something that I think my professional editor should have caught, but didn't. I wrote about my thoughts of my edit, in a separate post. While it's not detrimental, I agree with the reviewer that each lesson should have been written in the same way.Lastly, I appreciate that I was described as scrappy and that my stories were engaging. The reviewer even said I was a "man's man," thought I'm not exactly sure what that means. I didn't intend to show that I was a "man," as my goal was to just show that I was a person who had some good stories to share. That said, I've learned to always accept a compliment, no matter what.I'm waiting to see what the reviews from Clarion/Foreword Review and Red-Headed Book Lover will say about my book. I should hear back from them in about two weeks.My book is available on Amazon, check it out if you're interested!