The printer, MPG Books, is owed more than £150,000. The liquidator, Panos Eliades Franklin, has said that The Friday Project has assets valued at £50,000 but beyond that there is no funding to pay creditors.

The Friday Project was founded in 2005 with the idea of turning the best writing on the web into books.

Titles it published include comic actress Emma Kennedy's humorous guide book How To Bring Up Your Parents, and the book by the writers scurrilous gossip website Holy Moly called The Holy Moly Rules to Modern Life.

However, it failed to raise enough funding and went into administration in February this year. HarperCollins, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, is close to buying The Friday Project, and will take three of its executives on as staff according to reports.

MPG Books was unavailable for comment at the time of writing.