I agree with your first paragraph analysis but I doubt the doubling of prices would work very well as books (especially used ones) are commodity purchases where price is not really a signal of value. Btw, I think the anecdote you are referring to is from the book "Influence" by Cialdini and in that case the product was jewelry where the customers did not have a good frame of reference in judging quality and so fell back on the "high price = good" heuristic.
It was jewelry. I probably read it in a magazine article, which may have referenced the book. It's currently after 2am where I am. What I really mean is that raising prices (by however much) or not changing the prices at all and calling it a "sale" might have worked better than this tactic. I don't expect this tactic to work at all well. It is essentially asking for donations and doing so rather badly.
