We’ve raised $50,000—now I’m writing a book!

My vision for the future of capitalism has been greenlit. Now let’s make it a reality.

Quick version:

• We raised $50,000+ in investment pledges for my book We Should Own The Economy.

• We’re officially opening a community round in the coming days—you can still get in here!

• Now I’m writing the book, you’ll start receiving chapters next week!

• RSVP for our brainstorming call—we’ll talk about the project and start building a coalition!

• If you know of a good CPA—email me!

You’ve funded my book advance

Early this year, I announced a multi-year book project entitled We Should Own The Economy: A Vision for the Future of Capitalism (and the world). To practice what my book preaches, I invited readers to invest in the book and earn a share of the revenue when it sells.

In other words, I invited readers to become owners in a book project about creating more owners of the economy.

Within a month, we raised more than $50,000 in pledges, the minimum required by my fundraising platform WeFunder to officially open a Community Round. 137 investors reserved a place in the round, and many met with me to help me shape this project into something alive and momentous.

I’ve now spent the past month incorporating your feedback, restructuring my vision for the project, as well as completing the legal paperwork necessary to officially open the round for investment. We’re just waiting for final approval from the SEC, then everyone who reserved will receive an email asking them to confirm their investment. I expect this to happen in the coming days.

If you want to get involved in this project, you can still join here:

Now it’s time to start researching + writing!

I’m going to leave the round open through the summer, but so long as we achieve our minimum goal of $50,000, this project has officially been greenlit by readers—which means it’s time to start writing! I’ll spend the next couple of years researching this book and writing it in public, with investors participating as board members, advisors, and confidants along the way. I’ll send separate emails to each investor as they confirm their investment, officially inviting them to the various Slack channels and Zoom calls relevant to their tier.

In the meantime, you will receive chapters of the book just as you would receive any other essay from The Elysian, through your email or the Substack app. I’ll share essays for this project as I complete them, and add them to a live manuscript as I go (I’ll share this link with you shortly). These pieces are quite research heavy, and will appear interspersed with other collective projects I publish throughout the year. As my most long-term project, I’m estimating it will take roughly three years to complete, at which point I will close the canon and hire an editor, with investors having the opportunity to preview and provide notes on the manuscript before we finalize the book for release.

Hopefully by then we will have achieved some momentum, with some of these ideas becoming actions and entering the mainstream. It seems clear to me that we have reached a breaking point—we need to fix our wealth inequality to fix our power inequality—but we already know the solutions. Now it’s time to scale them, and remove the barriers that are currently hindering their widespread adaptability. I hope this book will enter the market during this key moment of inflection, and that business and government leaders will be inspired to take up its call, evolving capitalism for the next generation.

Contribute to the movement + join our call

A lot of you have reached out asking how you can help—this is incredible, and I would absolutely love your support! Especially because my goal isn’t just to write this book, but also to build a coalition that will evolve corporate structures, work with congress members to craft legislation, change laws that are currently hindering growth, and bring niche ideas into the mainstream so we can revolutionize our economy.

This requires more than just one writer with one publication, and I’d love to brainstorm some of the ways we can expand the movement and get some of the incredible thinkers here in one place to collaborate.

To this end, I’m hosting a call later in the month for anyone who wants to join, learn more about the crowdfund, and brainstorm ways we can start taking community action on what I see as a very urgent need to reform business in the United States and beyond.

Finally, I need a CPA who can help me with my much more complicated financial situation, including distributing K-1s to book investors, and setting up a profit-sharing pool for my core business. If you know an affordable CPA with experience please DM or email me at elle@elysian.press.

Thanks again for supporting this project, I’m beyond grateful and motivated to take this on and I have a research list the size of Alexandra’s Library to take on. I’m excited to spend my time reading and learning more, and I appreciate you being part of the process along the way.

See you soon,

Elle Griffin

Mandatory Disclosure: The Elysian is "testing the waters" to gauge investor interest in an offering under Regulation Crowdfunding. No money or other consideration is being solicited. If sent, it will not be accepted. No offer to buy securities will be accepted. No part of the purchase price will be received until a Form C is filed and only through Wefunder’s platform. Any indication of interest involves no obligation or commitment of any kind.