Dear Graduate is now published by Clarkson Potter!

I will admit we didn't tell a lot of people about this over the last few months as this was all coming together. My skeptical side didn't quite believe it and I was waiting until our book was available through Clarkson Potter and Penguin Random House before I would share the news! 🥳 🥳 🥳

Dear Graduate book was an idea inspired by conversations I was having with my children, Adacie McEnerney and Declan McEnerney, about how to decide what to do with one's life as they were graduating college and high school. Instead of asking, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" the book asks, "What will you do?" It turns out that leads to a lot more questions—29 in all—that would give a graduate (or anyone, really), some good food for thought.

After spending a couple of years printing and marketing the book ourselves, we kept hearing good feedback on it and had distributed it to more than 300 indie book shops and gift shops across the US. A big shout out also to Uncommon Goods for including us in their gift catalog, to Allsorted for distributing copies in the UK and Ireland, and to Faire for selling out of copies to gift shops and bookstores in 2024.

We were looking for an agent who could represent the book and pitch to publishers. I found InkWell Management, LLC and saw a photo of Kristin van Ogtrop, who, as Editor in Chief at Real Simple , I had worked with while at GBH (along with Jamie Haines, Nancy B., Dustin Smith, Kate Hathaway Weeks, and Bailey Snyder) on a Real Simple TV series for PBS.

Kristin had become a literary agent and we sent her a copy of the book, curious to see what she might think of the idea. She liked it and knew an editor at Clarkson Potter she thought might like it, too. They both saw the potential and Adam Larson and I are truly excited to work with them on bringing the book to many more retailers on April 29th, just in time for graduation season!

Thanks to everyone who read the book and gave us feedback and to Natalie Jackvony for her help along the way!

If you have any graduates in your life or know people who do, please let them know about the book. It can be pre-ordered on many sites–—and you can always ask your local book or gift shop to order it. If you see it out in the wild, please take a photo and send our way. 😎

Adam and I are looking forward to what's ahead and can't wait for more graduates to read it and hopefully help them as they take their next step forward in life.

How Dear Graduate went from self-published to a traditional publishing deal

Thank you to Josh Bernoff (who has written many successful business books and works with non-fiction authors on publishing projects) for writing about Dear Graduate, which we first self-published in 2022. A little excerpt below. Read the full story on Josh’s website.

”Is it possible to self-publish a book first, then solicit a traditional publisher? Sure, but only if your self-published book demonstrates a history of sales. If it doesn’t sell in a self-published format, you’ve proven to publishers that it’s not worthy of further investment.

In Build a Better Business Book I wrote about authors that made the leap, including Phil M. Jones with Exactly What To Say and James Fell with On This Day in History, Sh!t Went Down. I recently interviewed author Charles McEnerney about his book with Adam Larson, Dear Graduate: A Book for When We Take a Step Forward. This formerly self-published book for new graduates has just come out in a new edition from the Penguin Random House imprint Clarkson Potter. As you’ll see, it took a whole lot of work for the authors to get into a position to make that deal.”

Thank You for Our Second Successful Season

We just wanted to take a moment to express our gratitude to all of you who have purchased our little book over the past two years. 2023 was our second graduation season and we were very excited by the momentum this year. It’s not easy self-publishing these days with thousands of new titles being released daily! But with your support and kind words, we’re hoping to bring Dear Graduate to an even wider audience next year.

If you have a spare minute and are so inclined, we’d love to hear what you and/or your graduate thought of the book. Below are a few links to places where you can leave a quick review of Dear Graduate. And again, thank you for your support!

DearGraduateBook.com
Scroll to the bottom of the page and leave your review right here on our site.

Amazon.com

Thank you.

First, we have to say congratulations to the graduate(s) in your life! We hope the ceremony was beautiful, the speeches were inspiring, the party full of laughter, and the dinner delicious at every bite.

Second, we’d like to say thank you! We had this idea last winter, worked on it and had it printed, and put it out into the world, and ever since we have been hearing positive feedback from so many! 

You took a chance and bought a book from two strangers, or maybe you know us and supported us through a purchase. Either way, we can’t quite fully explain how much your support means to us. 

Another amazing part of this experience has been working with more than 25 indie booksellers and gift shops across the country, from New England to as far away as Gilbert, Arizona! Each time we heard from another shop that wanted to carry copies, it was further affirmation that we were onto something meaningful. 

It’s been a real treat to hear stories about the gifting aspect of the book and what kind of response it elicited. Photos are also welcome, and we’ll only share with your permission. Or share online and use the hashtag #deargraduatebook so we can find them there, too. A photo of the graduate in our life is below! 

Should you (or your graduate) care to leave us a review on our site (on Amazonor your favorite book reading app, e.g., GoodReads, etc.), that would be greatly appreciated. Or leave comment on our site and we’ll add them to our growing Reviews page.

We’re working on another new project, which has evolved as organically as “Dear Graduate” did. It’s titled “Dear Citizen” and it’s about a very different topic that has long been important to us: campaign finance reform and political corruption. We are hoping to spark some conversations about how we can all come together to address some of America’s political issues.

We’re working towards a print version this fall. In the meantime, you can read an early, still-evolving edition of it at dearcitizenbook.com. Check it out and let us know your thoughts if you'd like. 

We hope that the graduate in your life was inspired by “Dear Graduate.” And we hope it continues to move them, helping to navigate their life to find satisfaction, pride, and happiness in whatever they do. 

Thank you again and we hope you have a great summer! 

—Charles McEnerney & Adam Larson

“A Jamaica Plain-born book called Dear Graduate.”

We wanted to express gratitude to our local online news source, Jamaica Plain News, for running a little ditty about Dear Graduate! You can read the full piece here:

Jamaica Plain Author Asks: What Do You Want to Do When You Grow Up?

A little excerpt from the piece:

“…We wanted to give any graduate a moment to think deliberately about the road ahead and what they want to accomplish. The book asks questions of the reader—about what they hope to use their time to do and what values they’ll develop, evolving to bigger questions about how they act in the world and who they want to become and what they will achieve.

Adam Larson and Charles McEnerney

It also connected with the sense that a lot of people look down on other people because of the type of work they do or the education they’ve received. As a society, we’ve become more than a little obsessed with where you go to school, if you go to college and less about helping each person find the right jobs or careers that suit them and will give them satisfaction, pride, and dignity. “

Read the full piece here.