I've spent a fair amount of money and time on the photobook making project.
What I've learned so far:
First off, if you are going to spend the time and money (paper / ink) to make a fine art photo book then it seems like an awful waste to make it into a "perfect-bound" paperback. You don't want to spend all sorts of money for the nice photo paper of your choice and wrap it with a paperback cover where the pages are glued to the spine. It doesn't make sense.
Speaking of paper back covers - if you are doing a book that is say 11.5 inches wide, then the cover stock needs to be at least double that 23 inches, plus an inch or so for the spine. So you're in the 24 inch range and it's not that easy to find cover stock (I haven't) that's say 8.5 inches by 24 inches. You can do it with roll paper but that poses some other problems such as curling and getting the spine printing just right etc. It can be done - but photo paper on rolls - not the best thing for the cover.
But that takes me back to the hardbound book. The closest I've come so far is the BreezeKit from DigifilmLabs. I have one setting now. The book body, i.e. the pages are bound by individually applying double-sided adhesive to each sheet. This isn't as bad as it seems since the book is only going to hold between 20 - 30 sheets, and I made a little rig so that the applicator has a straight edge to line up with and you can do the 30 pages pretty quickly.
The weak point - as far as I see it - is how the books body is attached to the spine of the ready-made cover: two pieces of black cloth tape. With photo paper - I don't think it will ever lie flat. And it is probably sturdy enough for 20 sheets. And so far, it is the most inexpensive solution for a hard cover book.
During my search for ready-made hard back covers, i.e. so that I could have a wider spine, I came across a product line called FastBack. They sell all the pieces for the hardcover and the binding process, I'll look into it more tomorrow.
* * *
Fastback at least in terms of what's available now - is a dead end. They can only bind along the long edge, i.e. the book must be in portrait format.
