Kickstarter

The final tallies are in and the money's on its way. In the end, only seven pledges failed to go through, which just continues to show how awesome you all are.

I've started putting the screencast together and delivering rewards. It's off to a slow start, as I've had a lot of administrative work to do, but once this update goes out that will be done and I'll be able to focus on building the screencast and its website. More on that below.

Surveys are out. Everyone who pledged $5 or more should have received a backer survey by now (or a direct email from me). Please fill out your survey as I'll need that information to fulfill your reward.

The interim website is up. I've exercised my modest design skills to their fullest and created a placeholder letscodejavascript.com site. The URL is permanent, but the site will be replaced when the screencast goes live.

I've gotten a lot of requests from people who missed the Kickstarter drive and still want access to the screencast. I do plan to make the series available for a fee. I'm not sure how that will work yet; my first priority is meeting my commitments to backers. I'm collecting email addresses at the interim site and I'll send out an email when the screencast is generally available. So if you know someone who missed the Kickstarter and wants access to the series, tell them to visit letscodejavascript.com and put in their email address.

ROADMAP

As soon as this update goes out, I'm going to focus on fulfilling rewards. As with most software projects, I have a firm deadline and extremely squishy estimates. There's a lot of schedule risk to manage. I plan to be extra transparent about what's going on and when I intend to have everything ready, and I hope you'll understand that those plans will change as I learn new things.

The Screencast and Website

The biggest reward for me to fulfill, of course, is the screencast. I've committed to air the first episode in late June or early July, and I'm working full-time to meet that goal.

The screencast itself is fairly predictable. I've had a lot of experience with my Let's Play TDD screencast, so producing the episodes themselves won't be a problem, and I timed the production of several episodes prior to starting the Kickstarter drive. If producing videos was all I had to do, I could have the first one out next week.

The real challenge is putting together the letscodejavascript.com website and video hosting infrastructure. I estimated 80 hours for that work. (Based on what? Umm... look, a squirrel!) That means that the one thing I know for sure is that it will take me longer than 80 hours. How much longer, exactly? I won't know until I do the work.

My plan is for the first episode to air no later than July 16th, with Early Access backers getting their first batch of episodes the week of of July 9th. I'll be managing scope like a demon to meet this date. My family's summer vacation is in the second half of July, so anything that isn't ready by July 16th won't get worked on until August. Chances are good that I'll have a bare-bones website ready by then and I'll continue making improvements to the site in August and September.

My predictions will improve as I do the work and I'll keep you updated as I go.

Multi-User Packs

If you purchased a multi-user pack, I'll contact you a few weeks before the screencast airs (probably the week of July 2nd) to coordinate user logins. I'll probably be coordinating access manually at first, but I'm still dedicated to keeping the process low maintenance and hassle-free for you.

Signature Edition Books

Because my big schedule risk is the website, I'm prioritizing it ahead of the books. I'm writing a personal thank-you letter in each book, and a lot of the "Signature Edition" shipments require customs forms, so I can't just sign and ship them in my spare time. As a result, the books may not go out until after the screencast starts airing, which means they're likely to ship in early August.

That said, I've already received the Signature Edition books and they're in my office ready to be signed. If I can send them out sooner, I will.

Sponsorships

If you signed up to sponsor an episode, I'll contact you in early August to arrange the details of your sponsorship message. Your episode will air sometime in August or September.

Site Source Code

Other than multi-user packs, rewards at the $75 level and higher include a copy of the letscodejavascript.com site's source code in addition to the screencast source code. I'll be sending this out in late October so you get a version that's had its kinks worked out and contains the latest features.

Beer

Yes, I'm actually going to make a toast to the three people who selected the $5 "Buy Me a Beer" reward. :-) That will happen soon. Perhaps some evening this month when video hosting woes have convinced me that "Amazon S3" stands for "Amazon Says Swig Suds."

BACK TO WORK!

So that's the plan. It's probably not going to work out this neatly, so I'll keep you updated as things change. My first priority is producing a great series, and if these dates have to shift in order to keep quality high, they'll shift. Forgive my sudden yet inevitable betrayal.

Five Things I've Done Since the Last Update

• Caught up on all the administrative work that piled up while managing the Kickstarter.
• Built an interim website at letscodejavascript.com.
• Created roadmap and prepared working budget.
• Sent surveys or otherwise contacted all backers who pledged $5 or more.
• Discussed video hosting challenges with Chris Mather of Evented Mind.