Andrew Hodges: Second Home Page Part 1: swimming in cyberspace Part 2: self publication Part 3: music of time

Writing about Alan Turing meant an amazing experience of getting my mind into a life before I was born. But I'm not primarily interested in the past; my uneconomic maths work is for the future, and Roger Penrose has shown me ideas far ahead of our time. My new book reflects this uneasy relationship with time past, present and future. It is a novel called: THE UNWELDING

I do the time warp at a Rocky Horror Party

Publishing history Publishers are obsessed with fitting people and ideas into past 'genres.' I had enormous problems in getting my book about Alan Turing published. Rejection, delay, anxiety, no publicity or marketing, that's been my experience of these businesspersons.	Catty comment Meet my CAT Pevsner. In 1982 I took her in as a kitten, just as a publisher rejected Alan Turing: The Enigma as too long and boring. I named her after the publisher, my bete noire.
100,000 copies of Alan Turing: The Enigma have been sold but despite rather than because of publishers' timid efforts. My Alan Turing website has been the most important marketing effort — but it depends upon me working hard while all the profits go to the publishers, only tiny royalties to me. This is crazy!	In August 1998, after a long happy life, as sleepy as publishers... ...my cat Pevsner died. I decided that publishers' days were numbered.
Cut out the middleperson Self-publishing, with presentation on the Web, is the way forward. There's no point in being shy in cyberspace — no-one will know!	The Unwelding from writer to reader direct

Computer liberation

The Internet: second home The Web allows direct promotion and sales, with the additional multi-media possibilities of putting in links, pictures, music, reader reaction. Here's a spot to mention my web-hosts The Big Oxford Computer Company. More images of their work here

Bridging the gap For a short time I had a mirror site in San Francisco. We had a Real and Virtual Party to inaugurate it. Look in to see a model of WWW co-operation.

I've done DIY before...

Out from the past... In 1974, as a London student, I co-authored a Gay Liberation pamphlet, With Downcast Gays. We got it printed and distributed it ourselves. 25 years later it was republished by a university press. That's how long it takes...
Back to the future... I'm always conscious of the history behind everyday life, behind every image and word we use.

A Russian reader sent me this image from www.gay.ru It reminds me of the 1970s when liberation was fresh and new... Read about Russian gay history. The image is intended to mock Soviet macho militarism, but I wonder how it would look in Chechnya.

continue to part 3

main page

my images

A D V E R T I S I N G

Doing research? Try us for books, computers, scanners, or monitors. Or try to relax with a chart CD, pop CD, dvd, video, or bottle of wine. Escape it all with flights, a hotel, holidays in europe, or short breaks.