Backdating, "Futuredating," and Scheduling
Changing the publication time of a Substack post
Backdating
You can backdate published (including imported) posts and threads on Substack:
go to your newsletter
edit the post or thread
go to the bottom of the page and click “Settings”
scroll to “Displayed Publication Date”
choose any date and time back to January 1, 1980 at 12:00 am
click “Save" under this displayed publication date
check the published post or thread on the web to confirm that it has the correct date (or time, if you chose a time within the past 24 hours)
I can imagine several reasons why someone might backdate a post, such as:
to reflect more accurately when the post was written (as opposed to when it was published)
to re-organize a newsletter archive in a more sensible order
to indicate the dates of occurrences in a serial novel
I find it strange (though useful) that backdating is allowed (1) before Substack existed and (2) before the web existed. If you're young enough, you can backdate to before you were born!
So be careful with backdating. Marty McFly can tell you the consequences of messing with the past… 😉
Futuredating?
You can “futuredate” a post in the sense of choosing a date and time after publication up to the present minute.
But if you want to “futuredate” the published post now, you can't do it. You could claim in the post that you're publishing it, say, a year from now. But Substack's timestamp will undermine that claim.
Scheduling
Instead, you'd need to schedule publication, up to three months from now. You can do this after you click “Publish” at the bottom of a draft post.
Why schedule? Again, there are various possible reasons:
Because you think readers will want or expect to see a post at a particular day and time
Because you want to space posts apart, so that you don't have too much content in one day or week and too little in another
Because you want to write a fictional account of an event in the near future
Have you backdated, “futuredated,” or scheduled posts? Do you have any suggestions for other newsletter creators on changing the dates of posts?
OK, how do you "unfuturedate" a post? I created a post, saved it, paid no attention to the publication date, then sent out a note to friends telling them about it, with a link that can't be opened until tomorrow. I want it open now. How may I do this? The "Settings" button described above does not offer me any “Displayed Publication Date” option.
I'm interested in back dating because I post movie reviews. I have older reviews I wrote before I had my Substack. I would like my readers to be able to read them, but I don't want to email them or have them listed as current posts. It would be nice if they could come up if someone searches that specific movie. Thanks for going over how to do this, I think it will be useful for me.