[idoh]

To make it indexable you need users to enter in text. Maybe you could have a mini wiki above the search results, where users describe the search they are trying to do or what the search means, or can annotate the search. With your current UI this would be really hard. I feel like the UI is cool on first blush but sort of limits your options as far as experimentation goes.

Just brainstorming here:

- maybe the hook could be: "judge books by their covers"

- the layout is pretty slick but constrains what you can do with the site. Have you considered scrolling down? It could be a differentiator though (your current layout that is).

- When you mouse over a book, have some type of overlay function: star the book, "have you read this book? what did you think?" (leave a comment), share on twitter / facebook (a necessary evil perhaps)

- when you click on a cover, it lightboxes in and has the things listed above

- make it like a reddit, but for covers

- people who searched for x also searched for y

[chaosmachine]

I actually built another site around most of those ideas you just mentioned (but changed the idea to films, as I found they worked better):

http://filmvsfilm.com/

It's basically all user-generated-content, and it actually does rank on Google for a few things, but it's the wrong kind of traffic: People aren't in buying mode, very few visitors actually click through to Amazon and buy something.

[maushu]

Try changing the "Buy at Amazon" to "See it at Amazon", also show who is winning.

These are basically A/B tests.