My revised query letter writing wasn't going well, so the amazing 

[info]mandywriter

  swooped in to save the day again.  Hooray!!!   She came up with a new spin that I quite like, so I went from there, changing some words and phrases here and there.   This version has gotten positive responses from the friends whom I've run it past so far.  If I'm feeling enough confident about it on Tuesday, I'll probably send out a new round of queries soon.  

If any of you feel like reading and nit-picking, I'll appreciate the help!

New version:

If Seth McCoy had asked his Magic 8-Ball whether he’d ever get his shit together, the answer would have been: Very doubtful.  Or maybe:  Don’t count on it.  For too long, Seth’s focus was on getting wasted with his band—a pastime that contributed to his reputation as a slacker, a jerk, and an all-out loser.  But there’s one thing the Magic 8-ball didn’t predict: Seth’s close friend dying after a night of partying.  

                                 

Scared sober, Seth finally notices a girl who’s been there all along: sweet, beautiful, broken Rosetta.  She’s a brainiac from Rich Bitch Hill, but she doesn’t judge Seth for who he’s been.  Instead, she challenges him to become the person he wants to be—the person no one else sees.  Seth and Rosetta confide in each other, and are comforted to discover parallels in the troubled pasts they’re struggling to leave behind.  Still, when it comes to their relationship, Seth can’t help thinking:  Outlook not so good.

 

Straddling the line between literary and commercial, THE FAKE MCCOY is a YA novel about defying expectations and breaking free of the words that define you.  At 74,000 words, it will appeal to readers of John Green or Laurie Halse Anderson.

 

 

 

The previous version of the pitch, in case you're curious...

No one in Seth McCoy’s high school believes he’s ever going get out of Riverside Trailer Park. For years, he’s skated by with bad grades while focusing instead on his band—The Real McCoys—and drinking heavily to cope with his stage fright.  But when his friend Isaac dies—a tragedy Seth is sure he could have prevented—he’s scared sober.  

                               

However staying that way is tougher than Seth could have imagined.  His band is invited to tour the country, and he has to choose between sobriety and music.  To the shock of his friends, he picks sobriety.  It isn’t a single, finite choice; it’s a constant one that gets harder every day as he confronts his own part in Isaac’s death.   

 

In THE FAKE MCCOY, Seth wants to change the way people see him—especially the girl he’s fallen for from the “right” side of town—but first he has to change the way he sees himself.  Straddling the line between literary and commercial, THE FAKE MCCOY is 74,000 words and will appeal to readers of John Green or Laurie Halse Anderson.