How to win at Substack part 2

I'm back with some more little tips to make you feel like you know what you're doing ..

I’m Vikki, mum of three. I mainly write about how I balance raising my kids with working, maintaining a household and trying to carve out time for myself, hopefully with a humorous slant. Sometimes I also post short fiction that I’ve written.

A few months ago I wrote a little How to guide which you can find here and now, thanks to my muse

Maria Sandberg

I have a few more pointers to share! Not on how to get more subscribers or even more views BUT a few little tricks to make you feel like a slick smartie-pants.

Notes

I’ve noticed that if you highlight text when writing a note you now get more options. I don’t think you could do this a while ago but, honestly, I’m not the most observant person so sorry if you already knew this one.

Options appear when you highlight text

Bold, Italic, Strikethrough (always fun) as well as a bulleted or numbered list and a quote option. No polls yet though (sigh).

Accessibility

If the thought of recording a voiceover for your post brings you out in a cold sweat but you want the accessibility this offers fear not. You may have noticed a little play button at the top of posts.

Pressing this starts an audio version of the essay. The default voice is a man (shocking I know) but there are a few different options to choose from by going to Settings.

I chose Cora who seems very nice for an AI robot who may at some point reach through my screen and murder me.

The Biggie

If you have some time or just love to procrastinate like me, you may have already explored personalising your homepage. You can change the brand colours, add a logo, but my favourite, which I’ve been meaning to do for some time is Adding a tab of your own. I’d put it on my mental To-do list ages ago which meant I’d completely forgotten about it. Then Maria said this in her Do Less Club chat (great tips on being more present and lightening the mental load) and it reminded me!

Honestly, it’s perfect for what Maria wanted and I hope she doesn’t mind that I’ve co-opted the idea because here’s my version and here’s how you can do it too!

First, under Settings, find where the Tabs are and underneath click Add a Custom page.

It will open looking just like an ordinary text post and you can put in anything you normally can like pictures, links, MOTHERFUCKING POLLS (sorry, got a bit excited there) and it will have a comment section at the bottom, just like an ordinary post.

Click the three little dots to get these options

Once you’ve published it you can add it to the Tabs and just look how pretty this is!

This is now on my homepage (although isn’t showing on my rubbish phone) so hopefully people can find it when they visit my profile. Please let me know if you can see it there!

I’ve also discovered that on desktop (doesn’t work on my, afore-mentioned rubbish, Android phone) you get a contents tab on the left which lets you jump to each of the subheadings. I think this could be a brilliant feature if you have a lot of different info on there.

So tell me, does this excite you? Inspire you? What are you going to create? Oh, and please do come and visit me in my new little nook.