I want to take a quick minute to thank each and every one of the people who take the time to reach out to help us in providing hosting for online authors. It all started with a little 'ad laced' free forum and in 2004 became a service and community. I started doing what I'm doing simply because I appreciated the work being put in by so many people that I worked really hard to find, mainly because they made my life better. I wanted to share my appreciation to the people who put so much of themselves out into the public for no gain outside of the knowledge that 'the work you put in has the potential to enrich the life of another'. To me, that was so selfless and worth celebrating and supporting. So with the help of a friend who didn't survive long enough to see what his gentle shove ultimately accomplished in the long haul (Thank you August, you are still missed every day!), we actively sought out authors posting mainly on free services whose work clearly deserved a forever home. Along the way, I've gotten to work with some amazing talents, amazing souls each, and once in a while, someone we reach out to reaches back. That's what Ted Louis did for us.

As stated previously in our community, Fort Family Hosting had been made an incredible offer to attempt to boost the financial support at a time when it was most needed. One of the most influential authors of our time IMHO with one of the longest running single story lines ever posted. I have been a fan of his https://tedlouis.com and the community he built there for a VERY long time so when he announced his retirement, stating the service would remain up until his hosting expired, we held our breath and asked him if he would consider allowing us to give it the ability to continue on, hosting until we can no longer provide it. Not only did he floor us by agreeing, but he made an incredible offer to reward those who also helped to support this work. A free autographed copy of one of the books from the 'Joel' series for as long as there were some left in the box he had found in his home to anyone donating $10 or more. Well, because of the outpouring of support, that supply got exhausted, clearing a corner in his home and putting an amazing keepsake on many shelves of the people who helped make it all possible.

So, the free book offer is officially over and I want to say to each and every person that plays a part in helping make it possible to find some of the best amateur literature out there by ensuring it always has a home online. From the people who write the stories, to the people who read them, and every effort in between to make that possible, thank you for your continued support. Ted's work here is thankfully not going anywhere, along with the other thousands of stories hosted throughout the many sites in our community, and that is thanks largely to you because of your support.

To Ted Louis, my friend thank you for many years of memories, for your willingness to share it all with the world, and for your recent choice to pay it forward even more. May your retirement be all that you hoped it would be, and if it isn't, you point at the guy preventing it from happening and we'll go beat him up for you! LOL!

That said, please keep an eye out at https://fortfamilyforums.com for news and updates from the entire network of sites that Ted's site is now a part of. If you enjoy reading, please consider helping us keep the service online with a donation to go toward the hosting costs. That can be done by using the form on the right side of the page at https://dsshosting.net (which is also us) and if you are interested in helping to carry this service further into the future, please reach out to us through that same site.

Our story is way more amazing when you consider what stories are behind it being a reality ;)

Dear Readers,

While this is not a good time to be asking for money, unfortunately, we have several domain fees coming due, and finances are extremely tight. Our sites run on your donations and, unfortunately, mainly out of our own pockets. Due to the higher costs of everything our pockets are in not so great shape as wel. We are also determined to keep our sites ad-free and free of Premium Levels! However, we can only continue to do this with your help. So please click on the Donate button or this link and give what you can. Any donation, big or small, will be greatly appreciated and go a long way to keep the work of these amazing authours reachable.

TSL for the Fort Family Admins.

Hi Everyone!

Hi Everyone!

It's Jeff this year asking for your help to keep our sites up and running. You may well know our sites are run almost entirely on your generous donations! When your donations do not cover all of the cost, the difference comes out of our pockets. We have no ADs on our sites and no Premium Tiers and No Pay Walls! There is no charge to our authors for hosting their stories nor any charge for you the readers to read them. That was the original agreement in the beginning and we work hard to keep our promise to keep it that way. Of course we would appreciate it if you could find a way to donate any amount to help us in our mission keep our sites AD-free and running. So please check between your couch cushions and under your car seats any amount will be gratefully accepted. No amount is too small. Seriously!

We thank you very much for all of your help over the years.

So you know, our last offer is still on the table. We are still running the following promotion, simply put, make at least a $10 USD donation and say that you are interested, you'll get a random autographed copy of one of the soft cover Joel Books directly from Ted Luis himself. I don't know how many copies are left but while he has them, he's happy to send them to you all as a thank you. Mine is on a shelf here in my room and it's probably one of my favorite keepsakes.

The Original Offer - Repost:

Have you considered helping to keep these sites up and running? Are you also a fan of Ted Louis' "Joel" series? Well, Ted has informed us that he found a case of assorted Joel books. Yeah, "actual" in print books! He decided that for anyone willing to make a $10 or larger donation within the US to the hosting service paying the bills for the Fort Family Community of sites, he is willing to send you your very own copy of a random book in the "Joel" series, autographed by Ted Louis himself as a thank you! An amazing keepsake from an amazing author!

What to do:

1. Click on https://dsshosting.net/donations/donation-form/ and click on "Donate Now".

2. Make a qualifying donation of $10 or more.

3,. Email your name and mailing address to joel-offer@fortfamilyforums.com (Yes, a P.O. box, relative's address, next-door neighbor, total stranger's address... is fine. As long as you are able to intercept the mail ;)

4. Once the donation has been confirmed, Ted Louis will send a random autographed copy of one of his books to you directly.

(One book per donation. This offer will be withdrawn once the limited number of books has been sent. The early bird gets the worm! Unfortunately, only US residents due to expensive international shipping :( We'll take down the offer as soon as we confirm that no copies remain.)

Originally Posted by Fred DeElve

Originally Posted by JeffsFort

Dear Readers,

If you are reading Felix P.'s revised version of After The Game, I strongly advise reading Scribe 1971's story Substitute Dad as more of the characters from that story will be appearing in After The Game. Learning more about Josh, Shelley, and Mark will enhance your reading of After The Game.

Enjoy reading,

TSL

Originally Posted by Fred DeElve

Originally Posted by Fred DeElve

Originally Posted by Fred DeElve

Dear Readers,

It seems that while I was transferring stories from Ted's Original Site to this new one, I inadvertently forgot several of Charles Bird's Stories from his High Seas Series. I will begin posting those stories later today.

I will get those stories posted as soon as I can, please be patient though.

I will also be continuing the posting of Felix P's revised version of After The Game.

Take care,

TSL Webmaster.

I've been on the fence about this for a little while. Not so much what to post about this as I was considering "if" to post this. Why?

Back in 2004, we had been contacted by a concerned author/reader regarding a free forum we were using that was laced with ads and crap to gather and talk to a small handful of fairly well-known authors of the time. The "community" was considered back then, some form of author support. LOL! That concerned author/reader purchased a parent domain and the software to build an internally supported forum to move the conversation to and gifted it to us. You see the name August Christopher come up for us, this is why. That was the official birth of what we now know as the Fort Family. We all came from small beginnings, the oldest of us were developed in a relatively young internet and needed to change with the times. Our forum is gone now but because of the interconnectivity of the modern internet, the forum became obsolete. So now we focus on hosting the sites that keep online authors' work available to the world. Are we alone in this task, heck no.

On September 9, Dude (IRL - Vale Mike Wengert) founder of the online community "AwesomeDude" that is as old as we are, passed away from a massive heart attack at the age of 79 years old. Just shy of his 80th birthday :(

All of our communities face issues that unless managed could knock us off the internet. This is why there are so few of the "Old Guard" (as ACFan put it to me earlier) left out there. The death of the founding member is bad, when that founding member was also the person managing all the bills and accounts, it is more than a speed bump, it's a mountain to overcome. When August Christopher passed, we were in danger of losing all that had been built so, we have seen that mountain, and feel for the AwesomeDude community.

If you have time, please reach out to them and offer them some positive energy and support. Not only are they facing a difficult battle but they are mourning the loss of a close friend. That mourning has to take a back seat when dealing with trying to save their creation and I can say from experience, that part sucks! Our community was only a year old when we dealt with this loss and fought to get our hands on the wheel of what felt like an out-of-control bus. Their community was established almost 20 years ago, around the same time our community became something we could also call a community. So it is more the size of a freight train compared to the bus we needed to learn how to drive.

Even though over the years all these "competing" communities had fences between themselves and others of its kind, I've always considered us in competition with no one. Just another group or gathering supporting independent authors and offering a hand to get them exposure. That's all any of these sites ever offered. Dude was one of those people who felt the same way, and his absence will be felt by us all.

RIP Dude and best wishes to the community you created and those within.

https://awesomedude.com/

Dear Readers,

Felix P. has revised his story After the Game, and I will be posting the revised chapters shortly. Felix has asked that the original story be removed, and we are complying with his request.

Look for the revised chapters shortly,

TSL Webmaster.

Hi Everybody!

It's true, after decades of some of the best stories on the web, Ted Louis has decided to close the book and really start to enjoy his retirement. To him we wish all the best and look forward to his future input. (I mean, you can take the web away from the man, but you can't take the man out of... It sounded better in my head O.o)

 At any rate, today is the official launch of "Ted Louis' Bookshelf", a completely community integrated site that will allow us to continue to make sure all of Ted's hard work is protected and available to us all for as long as we are able. It's taken quite a bit of time to build something worthy of all the talent it will now contain and protect. We hope everyone will enjoy and maybe even contact an author or two to let them know how much their work is loved and appreciated. Our way of doing that was to build this new home!

 Soon we will be reaching out to all the active authors on the site to give them the keys to their new home and make sure all the right boxes went into all the right rooms. Real or virtual, moving has its challenges. The end product was sooooo worth the effort.

 Special thanks to The Story Lover for the time and love he put into translating all the HTML into each and every story that you now have access to. He spent hours making sure everything was ready to go. Then passed it to me to make the site itself work, LOL!

 So, we say goodbye to the old tedlouis.com but everything we came here for is still here, just looking slightly different with a new coat of paint, some spit, and lots of polish!

Thanks for all your hard work Ted and remember, this is and always will be your home!

- Jeff
(on The Story Lover's behalf. He's napping and can you blame him? LOL!)