2) Please please please reply to emails in a timely manner. I have already kicked out two people who have not responded for weeks to questions from their gifter. I will email, and I will message you through livejournal if you still don't reply, but I won't exert much effort beyond that. We're not going to spend a lot of time tracking people down this year.
There are five weeks until the due date. Hopefully you should have a beta already in place, even if you haven't given them anything yet. If you are having trouble finding a beta on your own, let us know!