In one month, 212 backers contributed $18,591 for the development of a book.

(about $16,200 after kickstarter & amazon service fees, if you're curious)

It's not lost on me that for most Americans that's a majority of their yearly income and for most humans across the globe, that's more than they'll make in 3-5 years.

Your collective faith in the project and this money together amount to a considerable obligation to make this awesome.

After the funds clear in 14 days, they're going into a new bank account that will only be used for direct expenses related to the research and development of the book. That's a promise.

When I set up the Kickstarter page 30 days ago, crossed my fingers, and hit submit I had a healthy sense this might work, that there is far more value in our networks of friends and colleagues than we can possibly fathom right now, but I had no idea we'd raise this much together.

And frankly, I had no idea that this many people were this willing to put their faith in us (it's not just me, people were clearly inspired by the type of people supporting the project).

So it's a shared obligation - between you and I - to make this thing awesome.

Research is ramping up fast. Next week I visit Boston and Microsoft's New England R&D office. I'll be inviting the Editorial Board members into their private basecamp group soon, too (but it might take a little longer than I planned, I had no idea there would be over 110 of you).

Personally, I just want to take a second to be candid and tell you all how much this means to me. This is emotional for me. This outpouring of support has been more than enough to I think cure me of any remaining cynicism about people or life I might have been carrying around with me. I've been taking stock lately of my nomadic existence over the last 4-5 years, of the cities I've moved from, of the people whose names I have trouble remembering now, of the random tragedies I've seen befall people I love ... and in contrast, this thing the internet that I've poured so much of myself into with a deep feeling that somehow I was building something with all of those sleepless nights hunched over my laptop, obsessed with something new, obsessed with building relationships with the brilliant people the web brought me access to. After every move, I tend to pair down what I own. I'm down to just a few suitcases now, I even left my guitars behind in Brooklyn. But as I was pairing down physical things, I was amassing more and more connections to people, connections that flutter between transient awareness and then gushing support like this. It's a remarkable feeling to know that I carry all of you around with me in addition to my few articles of clothing, and I hope you start to feel just a little bit of what I feel after this experiment.

14 hours left!

Funding closes at 12:35am EDT Friday morning.

Spread the word in the time we have left – if you haven't already written a post or tweet about why you supported the project, please consider doing so now.

And then get to know your fellow backers – you've all proven yourselves to be amazingly curious, helpful, passionate, and kind. Who doesn't need more friends like that?

Click the image below to see my latest post @whatconsumesme on our funding progress:

I just wanted to drop a quick note to everyone and say thank you. It's an amazing feeling, knowing that so many people are interested in what I can do, and have faith that I can execute it.

But even more than that, the people that have supported the project have proven themselves to be incredibly engaged and curious people - and you should meet every one of them right now. Thanks to @malbonster for putting this Twitter list together of all the backers.
http://twitter.com/malbonster/backingthebucket

The Editorial Board ranks are swelling. More people are joining up, and lots of people are upgrading their first backing so that they can join the community. I've got the Basecamp install setup and ready to start inviting people in as soon as funding closes. It's going to be awesome.

Thanks again, everybody.

Another quick update:

We just crossed the $10k mark! Which puts us at double the original goal!

A huge thanks & hello to our newest Editorial Board Members.

The final day for funding is THIS THURSDAY. 5 days left.

Thanks everybody. I hope your weekend is going well. Go barbecue something.

The best part of this project is by far the people supporting it, so I've grabbed 9 random members of The Editorial Board to-date to highlight in a post:

http://whatconsumesme.com/2010/posts-ive-written/9-reasons-to-join-the-editorial-board/

Hope everyone is well!

Hey everybody, here's a super quick update! (writing this from the Jacksonville Airport, with a 3 hour delay ahead)

- 94 people have helped raise $8,127 (someone donated $1k this morning!)
- 10 days left in funding, so 10 days left for people to join the Editorial Board crew (35+ so far) or become an Official Sponsor
- I've decided to go with a private Basecamp account for all the Editorial Board members, and once funding ends, you'll get an invite (that's when Kickstarter will let me see your email addresses)

If you haven't already, please consider penning a blog entry (or a tweet at least) about why you chose to fund the project. And if you have any ideas on bloggers/outlets that might want to write about the project, please ping me or go ahead and reach out to anyone you know.

I'm busy reading a ton of existing research and planning interviews. I hope to be in Boston at the end of the month to meet with some pretty brilliant researchers and maybe to setup a new experiment or two.

Thanks again everybody. This project has already blown my mind and we've just started.

Quick update, PSFK was nice enough to do a quick interview about the project and post it on their site:

http://www.psfk.com/2010/07/the-bucket-brigade-a-collaborative-publishing-project.html

Take a look and consider sharing the link.

Happy Wednesday!

Hey everybody,

I just posted a bit more detail to the project over at my blog.

Give it a read, and give it a share, if you will.
http://whatconsumesme.com/2010/posts-ive-written/lets-write-a-book-together/