While shopping for allergy-control mattress covers at amazon.com .
Now that’s on my must-read list for the year, and it’s only 800 bucks!
(but seriously, WTF? I can imagine professional papers and journals being available, but are they really that costly?). They’ve also got the 2006-2011 version available, but it’s only in PDF, and it costs just as much. Phooey on that, if I’m paying that much, I want a hardcopy!
Quilted cotton mattress-protectors and covers are a lot more subtle than many people realise.
It is common for industry publications to be very expensive. The reason is that there are only a very small number of people who want to have that info - but those that do, want it badly.
In order to be worth doing financially, one must charge a lot. Otherwise, it wouldn’t pay to do the research.
That’s about average for market research that’s out there. Like Malthus said, they contain very specific information that is needed by a very small group, and that information tends not to be anywhere else. Also, in my experience, it often costs less to get the hard copy because disseminating multiple copies amongst colleagues is harder with paper.
I just added it to my wish list. Somebody, somewhere, got very excited.
Wow, that’s jaw droppingly niche, isn’t it?
My husband is an academic writer, and while I have copies of most of the things he’s published, I don’t think we’ll have a paper copy of his latest - it’s being published in Holland, I think it is, in a $300 academic journal. I guess I’ll have to be content with a Microsoft Word document printed at home! 
So I guess the guy does a lot of papers like that as well as a TON of obscure language to english thesauri.
I found another of his promising papers here: http://www.amazon.com/2007-2012-Outlook-Washable-Scatter-Bathmats/dp/0497483726/ref=sr_1_75?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1215642659&sr=1-75
Some guy wrote a HILARIOUS review of it.
Only two copies left, it says. This gives me an idea . . .
PHASE 1: Buy a copy of The 2007-2012 World Outlook for Quilted Cotton Mattress Protectors and Covers, by Philip M. Parker. Read every page and study every word until you can recite long passages from memory, and have become imbued with all the knowledge contained within the tome.
PHASE 2: Buy the second copy. When it arrives at your doorstep, burn it immediately without even stopping to open the package.
PHASE 3: *Kill Philip M. Parker. *
Honestly, if you need an intermediate step between that and ‘PROFIT!!’, there’s really no hope of you striking it rich in today’s global economy.