15 November 1999
NEWS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
See... WWW.WORDARCHIVE.COM
Free Global Website Providing Financial Returns for Writers and a Public Viewing Platform for Contemporary Writings
Launched by Christchurch company wordarchive.com Ltd.
On 5 November 1999 wordarchive.com Ltd in a world first launched an interactive web-site that pays writers to display
their material online and gives a global audience of readers free access to a diverse range of contemporary written
works.
In the first week of its launch the site attracted 294 articles from 62 authors spread throughout the UK, South Africa,
Thailand, New Zealand, India, Australia, Canada and the USA on topics ranging from politics to head lice, elephants to
e-commerce and cigars to environmental activism.
wordarchive.com Ltd’s CEO, Gwilym Griffith-Jones, says that the company’s objective is to create a vast freely
accessible archive of written material for news, research and educational purposes that can be accessed via a clear and
organised browser interface.
Unlike traditional magazines and newspapers where authors may give up copyright to their material and are paid a one-off
fee, writers who submit their work to wordarchive.com retain full ownership and control of their intellectual property
while earning an ongoing royalty-style payment. They are free to sell the same work to other print or online
publications.
The writers that have registered are predominantly professional authors, many of them having published books and
contributed to publications such as Reader's Digest, The Independent, the Washington Post, London Evening Standard,
Intellectualcapital.com, Macworld, Lonely Planet, The Toronto Star and the Melbourne Age.
From 20 November 1999 the royalties generated each time an article is viewed will begin to accumulate in registered
writers’ accounts and, upon reaching a certain size, will be posted to the author. The royalties are derived from fee
paying advertisers that have signed up to promote their products and services using banner advertisements located next
to the articles. The banners can be tailored to appear next to articles that relate to the advertised products or
services giving the advertiser the ability to target particular markets.
The company’s growth strategy involves the promotion of the site to three major global target markets; the global
community of writing professionals, companies interested in promoting their products to a global marketplace and an
audience of general readers throughout the world.
For further information please contact
Ben Reader Tel.: +64 21 577442