why i will never be a freelance journalist

Before I bought my copy of Rick Perlstein's "Nixonland" last month, I checked Amazon for a copy of his book about Barry Goldwater, "Before the Storm." Not only is it reputed to be an amazing book, but it seemed like a good book to read before writing about Goldwater-esque fictional characters. Unfortunately, the book is out of print and Amazon only offered used copies for more than $100.

Turns out the NY Times guy saw the same price tag I did, but decided to turn it into a blog post for the Paper of Record.

How did the booksellers arrive at these figures, which seemed prohibitively high and oddly precise (would it have been $131.10 had one fewer page been dog-eared by the original owner)? And why wouldn’t at least one seller have tried to undercut the others? I e-mailed the store proprietors to find out.