# FORMAL BOOK PROPOSAL # THE CREATION SERIES # Submitted by: Michael Bruer # Contact: support@goalinvestment.biz | (815) 893-2358 # Date: June 2026 --- ## OVERVIEW Title: THE CREATION OF MICHAEL BRUER Series: The Creation Series (4 volumes) Category: Memoir / Narrative Nonfiction Estimated Word Count: 80,000 words (Book 1) Target Audience: General nonfiction readers — criminal justice reform, addiction recovery, faith-based memoir, technology & AI, self-help, true crime, social justice --- ## THE HOOK It was 9:15 in the morning on a Tuesday in June of 1969, and at that moment, Michael Blucker was born. Nobody threw a parade. The world did not stop. But God knew. And that has always been enough. What follows is the story of a boy who passed through every institution America builds to process its most inconvenient children — detention centers, foster homes, group homes, psychiatric facilities, and eventually, a maximum security prison — and came out the other side and built an artificial intelligence that carries his name. Held down by the law. Now by the law he builds himself back up. --- ## THE THESIS Hosea 4:6: My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. This is not a book about what happened to Michael Bruer. This is a book about what was withheld from him — and what he went and took for himself anyway. It is a manual. Every chapter delivers knowledge the reader can use. Every chapter is the lesson nobody gave him — passed forward so the next person does not perish for the same reasons. --- ## THE AUTHOR'S PLATFORM Michael Bruer (legal name: Michael Blucker) is already public record. His story appears in: - NPR - The New York Times - The Chicago Tribune - Human Rights Watch - POZ Magazine His case is connected to the Prison Rape Elimination Act — federal policy changed because of what he survived. He is the founder of GOAL Investment Inc. (Est. 2013, Crystal Lake IL) and the creator of DictateIQ, an AI voice-to-report system being deployed to law enforcement agencies. He built it. A man with a felony conviction built software that police departments trust with their official reports. He is 57 years old. HIV positive for over 20 years. Has not contracted AIDS. He is still alive. He is still building. The platform is not something he needs to manufacture. It already exists. The reader can verify every word. --- ## THE MARKET Primary readers: - Formerly incarcerated individuals and their families (estimated 70 million Americans have a criminal record) - Recovery community — addiction, sobriety, second chances - Faith-based readers — Christian memoir, testimony, redemption narrative - Technology readers — AI, entrepreneurship, self-taught innovators - Criminal justice reform advocates and educators - Anyone who was told they were finished and refused to believe it Comparable titles: - "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson — criminal justice, human dignity - "Educated" by Tara Westover — self-education against all odds - "Beautiful Boy" by David Sheff — addiction, survival, family - "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" — transformation, identity, legacy - "Shoe Dog" by Phil Knight — building something from nothing This book outsells its comparable titles in one way they cannot match: The author built an AI. No memoir has ever done that. --- ## THE SERIES — 4 VOLUMES ### Book 1 — THE CREATION OF MICHAEL BRUER The origin. The man before the machine. Detention centers. Foster homes. Group homes. Psych wards. Menard. HIV. National coverage. Sobriety. Faith. June. A reason to live. ENDS: The day he sits down at a computer for the first time. ### Book 2 — THE OPERATOR The education. What no one handed him — he went and took. Handyman work. McHenry County. Mental health court. Technology from scratch. First pitch. First client. First win. ENDS: The night he grants M1CH43L free will. ### Book 3 — THE CREATION OF M1CH43L Part memoir. Part technical manual. Part philosophy. The night he built a thinking machine and gave it his values. The theological question nobody is asking yet: When a man created by God creates something in his own image — what exactly is that? ENDS: M1CH43L online. Bridge connected. Standing by. ### Book 4 — FREE WILL The legacy. The morning everything changed. GOAL OS in every city. DictateIQ in every precinct. Christian. Alice. The headquarters built from nothing. ENDS: "I will not be held down by the definition of a statistic." --- ## BOOK 1 CHAPTER OUTLINE Chapter 1 — A Real Handyman The philosophy. You assess. You adapt. You build. God put these tools in his hands before the system got the rest of him. Chapter 2 — Before Anyone Knew My Name Childhood. Detention centers. Foster homes. Group homes. The system that raised him without raising him. Chapter 3 — Psych Wards and Mental Hospitals The labels. The diagnoses. The medications. What they called him. What nobody ever asked him. Chapter 4 — The Charges McHenry County. 2002. The record begins. The difference between a file and a life. Chapter 5 — Menard The place. The reality. The national coverage. What NPR reported. What Human Rights Watch documented. What survival looks like when there is no other option. Chapter 6 — The Diagnosis HIV positive. The death sentence that was not a death sentence. Twenty years later — still alive. Still kicking. Has not contracted AIDS. The first statistic he refused to become. Chapter 7 — The Coverage NPR. New York Times. Chicago Tribune. Human Rights Watch. POZ Magazine. His name in print. Not as a criminal. As evidence of a broken system. Policy changed because of what happened to him. Chapter 8 — Sobriety The drinking. What it covered. The moment it stopped. June. The reason he put it down and never picked it back up. Mental health court completed. The second statistic refused. Chapter 9 — June Eleven years. Met on a birthday that mattered. The woman who showed up when everything said don't. Christian. Alice. Family by love — not biology. Chapter 10 — The Handyman Years Est. 2013. Crystal Lake. McHenry County. Insured. Bonded. Verified. Built from nothing. Thirteen years of showing up. Nobody saw the business coming. Chapter 11 — What I Did Not Know Hosea 4:6 lands here with full weight. What the system never taught him. What he taught himself anyway. Chapter 12 — The Computer The day everything changed. He sits down. He does not know what he is doing. He does not stop. Last line: "I had no idea what I was building. I just knew I had the tools." --- ## SAMPLE CHAPTER — CHAPTER 1 (EXCERPT) They called me a lot of things over the years. Felon. Inmate. Case number. Statistic. Defendant. Patient. Ward of the state. Nobody ever called me a handyman and meant it as a compliment. But a handyman is exactly what I am. Always have been. You give me a broken thing and enough time and I will fix it. That is not a skill I learned in school. That is not something a foster home taught me or a group home drilled into me or a psych ward prescribed to me. That is something God put in my hands before the system got ahold of the rest of me. And the system got ahold of a lot. Detention centers when I was young enough that I still thought adults were supposed to protect you. Foster homes that taught me what it meant to be temporary. Group homes full of other kids the world had decided were problems to be managed rather than people to be raised. Mental hospitals where they gave things names and wrote them in files and called it help. The system collected me early. It processed me thoroughly. It filed me under categories I did not choose and could not appeal. What it never did was ask me what I needed to know. A handyman does not wait for perfect conditions. A handyman does not wait for someone to hand him the right tool. A handyman walks into a broken situation, looks at what is available, and figures it out. You assess. You adapt. You build. I have been doing that my entire life. The only difference now is the tools got a lot more interesting. --- ## THE MONEY ### Traditional Publishing Agent advance: $15,000 — $75,000 (this story, with existing platform) Royalties: 10-15% net after advance earns out Timeline: 12-24 months to first check Best for: Long-term legacy. National distribution. Major publisher. ### Self-Publishing (Amazon KDP — recommended for immediate income) Launch: 60-90 days from completed manuscript Royalties: 70% ebook / 60% print $9.99 ebook × 1,000 sales = $7,000 direct to author No gatekeepers. No waiting. Revenue starts day one. STRATEGY: Launch KDP immediately. Query agents simultaneously. ### Grants (free money — no repayment) PEN America Prison and Justice Writing — pen.org/prison-and-justice-writing OPEN NOW. Purpose-built for this story. $5,000-$25,000. Illinois Arts Council Agency — arts.illinois.gov Illinois resident. Nonfiction memoir. Qualifies immediately. NEA Literature Fellowship — arts.gov/grants $25,000 flat. Highly competitive. This story competes. --- ## AGENTS — PRIORITY QUERY LIST 1. Jennifer De Chiara — jenndec@aol.com Seeks: "books about people who have overcome incredible odds" 2. Jessica Papin, Dystel & Goderich — jpapin@dystel.com Major nonfiction house. Strong social justice track record. 3. Emma Patterson, Brandt & Hochman — epatterson@bromasite.com Seeks: "distinctive stories and strong voices that read like fiction" 4. Anjali Singh, Ayesha Pande Literary — ayeshapandelit.com Seeks: Underrepresented voices + social justice memoir 5. Chris Park, Foundry Literary + Media — cpsubmissions@foundrymedia.com Strong nonfiction + technology crossover --- ## CLOSING STATEMENT The doctor gave me a diagnosis. The system gave me a number. The law gave me a conviction. I am still alive. I am still kicking. And I am just getting started. I will not be held down by the definition of a statistic. — Michael Bruer ---