Hillcrest Media Group and Go-Publish-Yourself.com
Hillcrest Media Group purchased Go-Publish-Yourself.com (GPY) in 2006 because it was a site that provided a wealth of self-publishing tips, ideas, and information. Hillcrest Media Group recognized that Go Publish Yourself had an active member community which provided a solid foundation for Hillcrest Media Group's move into self-publishing.
The seedling for what is now Hillcrest Media Group was Go-Publish-Yourself.com. Back in 2006, Go-Publish-Yourself.com was affiliated with a division of another company owned by some of Hillcrest Media Group’s current ownership group. In fact, Go-Publish-Yourself.com was an affiliate of that other company. The concept for what is now Hillcrest Media Group was formed in May 2006, around the same time the former owner of Go-Publish-Yourself.com was looking to sell the site. With its email list, content, and membership base, Go-Publish-Yourself.com was a great potential acquisition for the (the almost formed) Hillcrest Media Group.
Go-Publish-Yourself.com was the first substantial acquisition Hillcrest Media Group ever made. Discussions went back and forth with the former owner for months as until we were sure there was actually going to be a Hillcrest Media Group, we weren’t quite ready to make such a purchase. Finally, when we decided to incorporate Hillcrest Media Group in September 2006, we sealed the deal with the owner of Go-Publish-Yourself.com. It was both an exciting and scary time for what was then barely-a-few-weeks old, Hillcrest Media Group. Back then we had a windowless interior office and some rickety desks (that we think were made out of plywood). Once we transferred Go-Publish-Yourself.com and all of the databases and web content to our Godaddy account, there was a lot of high-fiving around the office. We actually owned something cool!
Go-Publish-Yourself.com was the first third-party website Hillcrest Media Group ever purchased. And, that purchase was exciting for the small but growing company. Being able to own such a valuable online property helped Hillcrest Media Group prepare and understand how to incorporate future web purchases into its ongoing business strategy.
The next big purchase for Hillcrest Media Group came just a few weeks after Go-Publish-Yourself.com. That was purely a coincidence. We were just recovering from spending what was then a lot of money (for us) for a website. So, now Hillcrest Media Group is a few months old, and the owner of Published.com, the internet’s oldest book directory (dating back to 1997, the Stone Age equivalent of the web), contacted our CEO stating that he wanted to sell Published.com and its massive book directory. The owner of Published.com and our CEO had become friends through Published.com association with a former company run by our CEO. As excited as we were about Go-Publish-Yourself, our gang at Hillcrest Media Group, was ecstatic about the possibility of owning Published.com. First, it was Published.com! One of the best domain names that is and/or will ever be related to book publishing. Second, it had a huge directory of books and authors, making it a natural place for us to start to advertise the publishing services offered by Hillcrest Media Group’s self-publishing division, Mill City Press. The deal was sealed, a check was written, and suddenly, Hillcrest Media Group, a two-month old book publishing company, owned two amazing websites.
In case you’re wondering, Hillcrest Media Group didn’t buy another website until June 2010. Instead we spent nearly four years building out our self-publishing service offerings. First, through our flagship site, Mill City Press, then in 2008 came our book printing site, Book Printing Revolution (now BookPrinting.com) and in 2010 our ebook publishing site, PublishGreen.com came on board. Finally, in 2012, we started our book marketing division, PublicEye.com. You can learn all about our various publishing services at Hillcrest Media Group at http://www.hillcrestmedia.com/publishing-services.
Hillcrest Media Group didn’t just stop at book publishing services. In 2010, we filed a patent for our proprietary ebook conversion software. During this same time we consolidated all of the various publishing systems we’d built for our publishing divisions and created a publishing workflow system rivaled by none. Version 3.0 of this system was released in March 2014. To learn more about the technology created by Hillcrest Media Group, visit http://www.hillcrestmedia.com/technology-services.
Getting back to the other sites acquired by Hillcrest Media Group. In 2010, we acquired the award-winning book review site, ArmchairInterviews.com, a site that has more than 5,000 book reviews on it. In 2013, we acquired another book directory FindBooksNow.com.
You can learn more about Hillcrest Media Group at www.hillcrestmedia.com.
