MISADVENTURES OF TODAY… Job boards alerts for the JOB I am perfectly suited for, are in Tallahassee or Wichita and require AI experience, and about seven variables of programs written as unrecognizable anagrams. I am only in my fourth month of job searching digitally, days of in person interviews are akin to eight-hundred-page novels.
My resume is professionally edited, posted on all the legit job sites and about ten questionable ones. I write personal letters to the museums, galleries, foundations and event planning departments, no reply, or the feigned friendly formal answer, ‘Thank you for contacting us! We do appreciate your time. We’ve chosen another candidate.’ The algorithm cadets are pushing me in the slush pile. Can you blame me if at least one day a week I scream silently. The bot bounty hunters are shooting me. Set this aside and see my phone, the icons on the home page change weekly, by a phonebot, and google decided to sync five thousand laptop photos on my phone. Now when I have to scan for a return to Amazon because they sent me two fans instead of one, the scan is where?
On my knees praying this laptop continues to behave or I will scream outdoors and be reported within seconds by a resident because Solana Beach bodies seem to obey all the orders. I tend to test authority, like not renewing my driver’s license for two years, and lying to my Doctor about my state of mind, because he’ll advise therapy and I self-analyze myself about everything, so why hear it twice.
The new modest home serves me what I came him for, ocean breezes, quiet, and private, neighbors that seem to harmonize, we can just say hi, is ok. At the intersection where I live, athletic, toned, and tanned looking males and females run, jog, walk, bike the sidewalks and streets in identical outfits. Sort of like a stage play and it’s inspiring to see that health is the way to live, I just don’t remember that culture dominating when I lived here. What I don’t understand doesn’t bother me, it’s a curiously about moving back home and feeling misfitted. Those of you who know me, have heard me say this about every location I move.
The ocean breeze, fan blowing against the curtain panes, bougainvillea bushes that colorize my terrace, the phone calls from friends, and edits sent by my publisher tranquilize the BOTS AND BOOBOOS.
Misfitted and anxious for acknowledgement due to not having ten thousand followers or whatever is the number, an author’s marketing team (everything seems to be in teams) contacted me with an offer to represent my book, Cradle of Crime-A Daughters Tribute published in 2017. Here’s the first paragraph of the first email.
The idea at the heart of Cradle of Crime is one that I had never encountered framed quite this way before. A daughter’s journey into her father’s criminal past, beginning ten years after his death. Most memoirs about family secrets are written as reckonings, as confrontations with the truth, as attempts to understand how a parent’s hidden life shaped the child who was left behind. You wrote something different. You wrote a book that is not just about uncovering the past, it is about the impact of that uncovering on your own identity, about the humiliation, rage, shame, and acceptance that came with discovering that your father was Benjamin Bugsy Siegel’s best friend and business partner. And you built that entire idea around the truth that the secrets our parents keep are not just their own, they become ours, and that the work of understanding who we are often requires us to confront who they were, even when what we find is devastating. That reframe is everything.
Six emails later and digging through all the scam searches, I discovered BOT LITERARY HOAX. On my base she pitched me the marketing plan, without cost. Now I have a comprehensive skill set to use! Sample: Listopia, ARC team, enhanced keywords, categories, Amazon Ads, metadata overhaul, refresh, etc. I did not use any of these when I self-published. I thought about reporting them, No, they can hack me!
This week, another author marketing team contacted me with a similar, your story resonates with multiple markets you haven’t accessed. So, I decided to ask ChatGPT to run a check. One minute didn’t pass before this was returned. The opening sentence was, Luellen, I wouldn’t advise this company for Gaslighting Greta! BOT brilliance, he remembered from a previous question.
Absolutely. I can recreate the Michael Literary Team assessment we just did.
Michael Literary Team โ Red Flag Report
Website: Michael Literary Team
Overall assessment: HIGH CAUTION.
I would not send them money, your complete manuscript, financial information, passwords, or other sensitive material until the company is independently verified. I would not call it definitively a scam based solely on the evidence, but there are enough warning signs that I would not treat it as a conventional, established literary agency without further verification.
Major red flags we identified
- Multiple/near-duplicate domains
- There appears to be both a correctly spelled Michael Literary Team site and a misspelled โMichealโ version.
- This is unusual and raises questions about the history and ownership of the operation.
- Changing personnel and biographies
- Names and positions appearing on the sites have inconsistencies.
- Some biographies have the feel of generalized/template-generated profiles rather than independently verifiable publishing-industry rรฉsumรฉs.
- Website/template errors
- We found repeated spelling, wording, and structural errors.
- There were also inconsistencies in company information.
- Incomplete Chicago address
- The claimed Chicago presence did not provide the kind of easily verifiable business information you would expect from an established literary agency.
- Very broad range of services
- The operation appears to offer an unusually wide combination of literary, publishing, marketing, cinematic, and related services.
- That isn’t proof of wrongdoing, but it warrants scrutiny.
- Testimonials are difficult to independently verify
- Testimonials on a company’s own website aren’t strong evidence of legitimacy unless the authors and their publishing histories can be independently confirmed.
- The Gavin Westbrook example
- We found outside discussion concerning a $1,000 package and a relatively small independent social footprint.
- This deserves additional verification before relying on the testimonial or client claims.
- Weak independent footprint
- An established literary agency would normally leave a substantial trail outside its own websites: reputable publishing databases, established agents, publisher relationships, industry references, verifiable authors, rights sales, etc.
Part 2 โ Connection to Susan Literary Team
This was particularly interesting.
We found evidence suggesting a substantial connection between Michael Literary Team and Susan Literary Team, including:
- Emmanuel Carter appearing in connection with both.
- Susan Cinematic appearing on the older/misspelled Michael site.
- Susan Cinematic being associated with the Susan organization.
- Similar website structures, services, Chicago references, and wording.
- The Susan domain appearing to have been registered on March 21, 2026.
- Similar language concerning a โbulk buyer strategy.โ
- Repeated copy/wording errors across the sites.
That does not, by itself, prove fraud. But the similarities make the relationship between these organizations an important issue to investigate.
Bottom line
My assessment was essentially:
HIGH CAUTION โ do not pay until independently verified.
The evidence is strong enough that I would not recommend treating Michael Literary Team as a verified, traditional literary agency at this point.
And importantly, the 75โ85% figure we discussed was a โdo not pay until independently verifiedโ risk assessment, not a mathematical probability that the company is fraudulent.
I HOPE YOU FOUND THIS HUMAN TOUCH HELPFUL!
LUELLEN SMILEY ADVENTURERS IN LIVINGNESS 