Work on the website continues as I find things to improve, clean up, or simply make work better. Building and maintaining the site myself has turned into an ongoing project. Headers, footers, navigation, search engine indexing, images, links, mobile layouts, and performance have all received attention recently. Every time I think I am finished, I seem to find something else I want to improve.

At the same time, the writing has not stopped.

I currently have multiple projects in various stages of development. Some are further along than others, but I continue moving between stories as ideas develop and the characters and worlds take shape. There is never a shortage of something to work on.

One of my main goals right now is to have another novel ready for release in November. I am not announcing an exact date yet, but that is the target I am working toward.

Today also carries a special meaning for me. My mother would have turned 80 years old today. One of the projects I continue working on is a novel based on her life and the experiences that shaped our family. It is a story that means a great deal to me, and I hope to have the book completed and ready for release by Mother's Day next year.

Balancing writing with maintaining Ada Forge Books can make for some long days, but watching both the books and the website continue to grow makes the work worthwhile.

More updates will be coming as November gets closer. Until then, I will be doing what I usually do: writing, editing, working on the website, and probably finding one more thing that needs fixing.

Thank you for following along and supporting Ada Forge Books.

There has also been quite a bit of work happening behind the scenes here at Ada Forge Books. I have recently been going through the website page by page, correcting issues with the headers and footers, improving navigation, cleaning up links, optimizing images, and making sure the site works properly across its different sections.

With a growing website, there is always a chance that something gets missed. If you come across a broken link, missing image, page that does not display correctly, or any other problem, please let me know.

You can send me an email using the Contact Me information on the website. Reports from readers are appreciated and help keep the site working the way it should.

More information about Demise: A Legacy Undone will be coming as we get closer to November, including additional details about the novel and its release.

Thank you for visiting Ada Forge Books and for following along.

When I first started out, I purchased a domain and website hosting through GoDaddy. Their system made it easy to get started. I could purchase the domain, choose a template, and build the site using a simple drag-and-drop editor. It was basic, but it served its purpose, and I probably would have stayed with GoDaddy if not for one issue: the renewal price.

GoDaddy is inexpensive when you first sign up. A year later, after you have spent countless hours building your site and establishing your domain, the renewal cost can jump dramatically. In my case, the increase was roughly 200 percent.

I decided to say, “No thanks.”

So I started over.

This time I moved the website to Cloudflare, which provides free hosting, and I was able to purchase the domain adaforgebooks.net for several years at a very reasonable price.

The biggest difference is that this website is built by hand. There is no drag-and-drop editor. What you see when you visit Ada Forge Books is made from HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images, and a lot of trial and error. Altogether, the site now contains around 10,000 lines of code.

Crazy.

It has given me a whole new appreciation for web designers and developers. Before software made website building easier, they definitely earned their money.

ChatGPT has been a tremendous help with the process, especially while working with Linux Ubuntu, Visual Studio Code, Git, GitHub, and Cloudflare. But it is not as simple as saying, “Hey AI, build me a website.”

It still takes hours. Lots of hours.

There is plenty of time spent staring at a terminal, reading through lines of code, tracking down the one line that needs one tiny change, fixing broken links, adjusting images, testing mobile layouts, and trying again when something does not work the first time.

But it has also been a lot of fun.

I enjoy finding new things to add, improving pages that are already online, and watching the site slowly grow into something much larger than the simple website I started with.

Take a look around, and come back often.

You never know what I might add next.

This will be the permanent home for book announcements, cover reveals, writing progress, character spotlights, website updates, and behind-the-scenes looks at upcoming projects.

Each post can also be shared directly to Facebook, allowing social media readers to return to the Ada Forge Books website for the full update.

Each season brings 250 new residents to the private island. Two hundred forty-five are ordinary people selected for the show. Five are secretly death row inmates whose identities are known to the television audience but not to anyone living in Mercy Creek.

The town itself has been designed to resemble an idealized 1950s American community, complete with a diner, grocery store, theatre, bowling alley, repair shop, community center, and the private Pardon Island Diary Room.

The revised image focuses entirely on the front-cover artwork and is now being used for the digital edition and the Ada Forge Books website.

The new presentation gives Demise the same clean book-card proportions as the rest of the Ada Forge Books catalog.

The trio wants to establish a peaceful commune built around cooperation and survival.

At the same time, Mad Marve, also known as the Black Baron, has begun creating his own new society. His plan is a dictatorship where he rules.

Both groups want the same territory, and the two visions cannot survive side by side.