Warning Concerning Owen Robinson

I want to warn other authors about a letter I have just received from the Owen Robinson agency. In reply to my submission I received a form letter with a hand written postscript, both of which suggested but did not guarantee that if I were just to use a certain writer's service, my manuscript might be worth their attention. The service's prospectus was enclosed; strangely enough, it says that they offer "guaranteed consideration by a successful literary agent". Owen Robinson, perhaps?

Although each of the service's partners is listed as having dozens of published works to her name (they are all women), a little research shows that one teaches IT as part of an adult education programme; books in print lists only a "how to publish" guide by another; and the third does, indeed, have several works extant, the most recent of which is warmly reviewed on amazon.com as an excellent book for readers "age 13 and over". All of her books were strictly genre, and several were juvenile. While this surely makes her a good guide to writers of similar works, I submitted a work of modernist adult literary fiction.

I haven't spent the money to test my theory that the service (which provide only critiques, no actual editing) would send me several pages that recommend "thinking of something exciting that could happen to my characters, and then imagining how they would react" and other such gems of generalised and unhelpful nonsense, but my suspicions are strong. In any case, an agency that directs you to a service that promises an agency is one that at the very least lacks the kind of subtle thinking one would like of a representative, and at the very worst looks like a bit of a hustle, praying on the desire for publication at all cost - even 15 pounds per 10,000 words or part thereof for advice by an only moderately successful writer of a completely inapposit kind of book.