HOW TO PUT YOUR MASTERLIST IN YOUR DESCRIPTION
Here’s a tutorial for something that I’ve been asked quite a bit. I added photos to make steps super clear. If there is any confusion, please drop me an ask and I’ll figure it out and edit the post accordingly!
1. Make your Masterlist. Create a text post and title it how you would like. If you want you can add some subtitles underneath, but we’ll get to that later.
3. Scroll over the top right corner of the text post, and the corner should animate like it’s folding. Click on the corner and it will take you to your blog with the post and it’s URL. Keep this window open.
4. Type in yourblogname.tumblr.com into a new window. When you get to the front page of your blog, up at the top right should be a button with an eyeball icon that is labelled “Edit Theme.” Click it!
5. On the left side of your screen, the editing panel will open for customization. Go to the section titled “Description.” Write whatever you’d like here, and in the next step we’ll get to adding in your Masterlist.
6. This is where it gets a little tricky. Go back and open the window that has the URL to your text post (the one in step 3)
7. Copy and paste this string of characters into your bio to create the link for your Masterlist: <a href=post/149093670988/masterlist>MASTERLIST</a>
***PLEASE NOTE: This will not work unless you remove the segment that says post/149093670988 and put in the segment from the URL for YOUR text post and fill that spot in. This is the link for MY text post for MY blog and you will have different numbers, so you need to make that change. If you want the link to be titled something different in your description, instead of “MASTERLIST”, put whatever you want the title to appear as in your description in that part of the character string. Do not leave any spaces, format it EXACTLY like it is above or it will not work.***
8. Save your changes by clicking the button at the top of the customization bar.
9. Open a new window with yourblogname.tumblr.com as the URL. CLICK THE NEW LINK IN YOUR BIO TO MAKE SURE THAT IT WORKS! If it does not, then you might have made an error with the string of characters. Make sure that it follows the exact format that I’ve posted in step 7.
AUTHOR NOTE: Every time I make a change to the description of my blog (even if it doesn’t affect the string of characters), the Masterlist link stops working and becomes normal text in my description instead of a link. Every time you make a description change you have to delete the string of characters and paste it back in again. It’s annoying, but I do not know how to fix it, so just a heads up!
10. To add your fics/writing posts/etc into the Masterlist, you must edit the text post you made in step 1.
This is done by either going to the URL page with your text post (as done in step 3):
Going to the bottom of the text post and clicking the icon that looks like a gear, and selecting edit:
11. This is the step where we attach the link. Nobody likes to see a big ugly complete URL in their Masterlist. There is a way to embed the link within words so that people can click on the words and it takes them to the piece. Usually people use the title of their work, but you can write whatever you’d like for the link to be embedded in.
Highlight the text with your mouse, and the tumblr text editing bar will appear. You want to click the icon that looks like a diagonal infinity symbol.
12. When you click that icon, a bar will appear. This is where you paste the URL of your fic/writing piece/aesthetic/whatever. Post your writing, and use the folding corner method” from step 3 to get the URL of the post. Copy and paste this into the bar.
13. Click “Done”, and save your updated Masterlist. The link from your bio will always update when you update the Masterlist manually, so you don’t need to fiddle with the link in your bio every time you update the post to include a new fic.
There you go! Hopefully that helps people out with how to make your Masterlist and put it in your description, as well as how to add your writing onto it without pasting the full URL. Good luck to you and if there is any confusion, message or ask me!
