Niche Publishers

While searching Target.com for a vegetarian shaving brush (no luck. Seems like it's impossible to find a reasonably-priced shaving brush that doesn't contain badger hair or boar bristles), I came upon a book entitled: The 2007-2012 Outlook for Shaving Brushes and Hairbrushes in India. At $495 for the hardcover (no word if there's a paperback available), this 258 page study report "covers the latent demand outlook for shaving brushes and hairbrushes across the states, union territories and cities of India. "

I'd like to see a book on the latent demand for books on selling hairbrushes in India at Target.com. Is this a huge market for them? or for anyone? I mean really, how many copies of this book need to exist in the world? Ten? Maybe 20? One for each of the hairbrush manufacturers who sell in India, maybe one for the author... one for his mom... and that's about it,right?

And then there's the topic of this publication. Do the same companies even make shaving brushes and hair brushes? Seems like it would require radically different manufacturing expertise. Why are these things even investigated in the same study? I'm flabbergasted. Of course, thatt might have more to do with last night's lack of restful sleep (thanks to The Boy's entry to the land of teething), and less to do with niche publications.