I hold back some times, actually a lot. I try to keep this blog focused on atheism, religion, skepticism, secularism, and science. I have a collection of at least 30 blog posts that I’ve written or partially written, but never posted. That means that about 10% of what I’ve at least started writing about (not counting videos and comics that I post with little or no comment) has not been seen by the world. In this count I’m not including blog posts that I am currently working on, just ones that are sitting in a folder on my computer that have been untouched for weeks or months.

The reasons these have never seen the light of day is sometimes because it was a timely issue and I couldn’t get it finished in time, but usually it’s because it was too controversial or too personal. One in particular involves an ex-girlfriend.

PZ Myers has some advice that’s directed towards science bloggers, but I wonder if this applies to me as well:

I have to disagree with the suggestion that you avoid discussing anything but the science (obviously!) If you want to engage readers, you’ve got to go beyond the narrow domain of your field — you don’t have to embrace controversy, like some of us do, but blogs are a personal medium, and if you aren’t expressing yourself freely you’re not going to get a wide readership.

…

He shouldn’t be puzzled. I’m not trying to be disparaging, but 150 visitors a day is very low…

I’ll be honest, I would be excited to have 150 visitors a day. I guess the size of my reader base wouldn’t be “very low” but pathetic. I know an important part of expanding that is to shamelessly promote. I have done a little of this, but not as much as I could. Fortunately I have had a few more opportunities than usual recently and they’ve been rather accidental (it’s amazing how far emails can get you when you’re a jackass), we’ll see how that goes.

Podcasts do get you recognition, but they don’t bring the site visits. This makes since. I listen to quite a few podcasts and usually listen to them in the car. Even though I could easily get to the link, by the time I have the time to check it out, it’s out of my mind and I rarely go back to find the link. The cool thing with podcasts is not just the cool people you’re doing the show with, but going to a meetup or conference where someone recognizes you by your voice.

PZ says that bloggers need to express themselves freely. The things I write about are only a small fraction of the things I’m passionate about. Since I wouldn’t want to trade 500 new readers for 50 of my current readers, I’m curious if you guys would indulge me delving a bit more into non-secularism related politics a little more often and writing about Linux on occasion?

Those of you who follow me on Twitter have probably noticed that I’m much less focused than I am on the blog. In particular I tweet about Linux a fair amount. If I opened up more here, it would probably resemble Twitter a bit more. Let me know what you think.