Mightywords.com To Shut Down In January

Posted on December 14, 2001

Mightywords.com announced it will be closing its doors on Jan. 12, 2002. Twenty-three employees at Mightywords.com will be losing their jobs. Mightywords was originally a subsidiary of FatBrain, until FatBrain spun off the company and BarnesandNoble.com invested $20 million for a 30% stake in the new company. In September, 2000 BarnesandNoble.com purchased FatBrain and increased its ownership of Mightywords to about 50%.

Writers with content on Mightywords.com will only have until the shutdown date of January 12, 2002 to obtain copies of their files from the website. A content provider FAQ has been posted on Mightywords.com. Customers that have purchased content from Mightywords will also have until January 12, 2001 to download any copies of files they have purchased.

When the MightyWords website originally launched it allowed anyone to upload digital content to the website and sell it. However, in November, 2000, tightened its submissions policy, switching its focus to business and technical materials and terminated thousands of contracts with writers.

This is the third major epublishing business to close this month following the closing of Time Warner's iPublish.com and Random House's closing of its AtRandom ebook imprint. However, both Time Warner and Random House plan to continue providing ebook editions of some of their hardcover and paperback books.