

Ask HN:  Looking for feedback on my spare time project,  Booklends.com - bhousel
http://www.booklends.com

======
bhousel
Before people ask, yes I do know about the other sites that are very similar
to this.

I got the idea around New Years and have been building it in my spare time.
Even after other Kindle book lending sites launched, I figured I may as well
finish mine anyway!

Edit: Wow HN, you killed it! I'm upgrading the Linode now. If you can't get
through, just try again later, thanks!

~~~
robinwarren
anything different about your site? Are you targeting a specific niche to get
more of a certain type fo book or anything?

BTW, congrats on completing something, always a learning experience to get
anything out there I think.

~~~
bhousel
Thanks! Yeah I learned lots working on this project. I've got a bunch of other
things planned too.

There's nothing intentionally different about my site from the other ebook
lending sites. I did try to make it as simple as possible. I have a feeling
that there is space for a handful of sites like this, since Amazon did sell
millions of Kindles this past holiday season. People may segregate themselves
into communities of other like-minded readers.

Actually you don't need a Kindle device to borrow or lend the eBooks. You can
read the books on your computer or other device (iOS, Android, Blackberry,
etc).

~~~
robinwarren
I don't know much about the competitor sites so am asking out of interest as
opposed to any professed insight (although I did buy my wife a kndle for
Chrsitmas). It seems a smart approach (if it's not being done already) would
be to pick a specific niche and become the 'kindle lending site of X'. That
way you can get a reputation for having the most books about X available to
lend at any moment. What that would ne I don't know. Or maybe look into book
clubs, a lot of book clubs must read the same books a lot of the time, maybe
seeding with a few copies of books from some celeb endorsed list could kick
start a book club lending site?

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Shanewho
I would make the Sign Up button big, bold, and colorful. Check out the
download button on this page: <http://www.phonegap.com/> (just an example, I'm
not affiliated with them). See how it's big and colorful and really stands
out. Also note that your logo shouldn't be larger than your call to action
button. I have to search for yours.

~~~
bhousel
That's one of the first things I want to fix when I get time.

I actually want to use the 'fancy buttons' gem
(<https://github.com/imathis/fancy-buttons>) but I would have to switch the
site over to using compass for my stylesheets.

Which isn't a bad thing, just not something I want to spend time on this week.

~~~
jayunit
Coworker of mine wrote this: <http://ubuwaits.github.com/css3-buttons/> (no
need for sass/compass)

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vellum
Change your copy to “Log In” and “Sign up Now”. Make the links stand out more.

Lending Kindle books is non-obvious. Make an FAQ or a walkthrough. Make the
copy something like this: “Don't know how to lend or borrow books on your
Kindle? Find out“ The “Find out” part should be a button. Then once you're
done with your explanation, make another call to action, “Get started today!”

Get people engaged with your content on the front page. Look at Amazon's book
section. They don't just start off by just listing books #1 to a billion. Put
in some lists or categories, like top 10 books. Spotlight some popular books
on the front page.

Replace the “Find” link with "Browse" or "Explore", and make it stand out
more. Put a search bar on every page.

Put more decision-making information in the rows. Import the star ratings,
user reviews, and some content information from Amazon.

------
Spines11
In Chrome, on your sign up and log in pages, the https has a red slash through
it warning that the page contains unencrypted resources.

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kariatx
From a user perspective, I'd like some signs that people are actually using
the site and lending books before signing up. Maybe consider featuring user
activity on the front page (seed it with some friends if need be) and seeing
how that changes your conversion ratio.

------
city41
Did we kill it? I'm getting:

    
    
      Ruby (Rack) application could not be started
      Failed to connect to a master node at localhost:27017 (Mongo::ConnectionFailure)

~~~
bhousel
haha yes, you killed it :) It's back up now on a more powerful VPS, thanks for
being patient..

Edit: By the way, if you get the "We're sorry but something went wrong" 500
message, that's just because Amazon's API isn't responding. It's limited to a
(kinda low) 2000 queries/hour, and even though I do cache the most common
searches, being on the front page of HN pushes it over that limit..

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tcgore
If this gets traction, how long until Amazon blocks your referral account? I
hope they don't, but isn't this the most recent precedent?

