Another thing which irritates me - coming late to a popular author, so that most of the early books are out of print or so rare that the second-hand sellers on Amazon feel justified in asking for stupid money for them. So far, I've seen prices ranging from £90- £350.
Labby, I happen to be a second-hand seller on Amazon and although I don't have the Spenser books (I read and sell mostly nonfiction and I haven't really been following this thread) it is my experience that the prices for books by most popular authors are so low that I can't afford to sell them--by the time I pay an Amazon commission, I would lose money. In fact, I have not been adding any books to my listings because there are so few that I can get a decent price for. (I am a small seller, so if a book sells for $4, I pay $2.94 in fees to Amazon, and sometimes the shipping fee doesn't cover all the shipping costs, and I have to be willing to accept returns, so I generally don't list anything unless I can get at least $7 for it.)
When you buy books from Amazon, are you just checking the UK site, or do you look at the US site too? Also, there is one seller from the UK who advertises on the US site, and I don't know how they manage to sell their books so cheaply with the international shipping--I have bought one book from them, and I only paid about $5, which included the shipping.
Anyway, let me know what authors you are looking for and I can keep my eyes open for them next time I go to our local used book shop; they only let you use trade-ins for half the cost of the book, but I have so much credit there I will never use it all up.
Also, I have just checked Ebay, and there seem to be a number of Spenser novels for sale there.
