The conversation moves between the creative life of the book, its edit, sequence, design and text, and the business of it, its funding, print runs, pricing and distribution. It is grounded in a conviction the Collective formed around: that photographers make better books, and reach more readers, when they share what they know and support each other; and that to ignore the economics of publishing is to risk making the practice unsustainable.
Who will be joining you?
Your host is Gabrielle Motola, a photographic artist, writer and co-director of The Photobook Club Collective. She self-published her first book, An Equal Difference (Restless Machinery, 2016), an ethnographic study of gender, crisis and cultural resilience in post-2008 Iceland, through a mix of crowdfunding and self-funding, and self-funded her second, Elūl (2025), a hand-bound and signed edition that turns the lens inward on perception, attachment and the projections people carry into romantic relationships. She has received the AOP Portrait Gold Award and been shortlisted for the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize.
She is joined by six authors and fellow members of TPBCC whose books span six decades and every route to print:
Janine Wiedel, a documentary photographer who began in the late 1960s in California, photographing the Black Panthers and the Berkeley student riots, and has been based in London since 1971. Her work across five decades focuses on social justice, marginalised communities, industrial decline and protest, and is held in collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Martin Parr Foundation. Her books include Irish Tinkers, Vulcan's Forge (Bluecoat Press, 2024), Life at the Fence (2025) and St Agnes Place Squat (RRB Books, 2026).
John Walmsley, a freelance documentary photographer since leaving art school in 1968, where he photographed the Guildford School of Art sit-in. His final-year project on A.S. Neill's democratic school became Neill & Summerhill (Penguin Education, 1969); his photographs appear in over a thousand books worldwide, and his work is held by the National Portrait Gallery, the V&A and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
Jane Hilton, a photographer and filmmaker who has documented American culture, and the American West in particular, for over thirty years, from cowboys and Nevada's legal brothels to gun culture and drag. Her monographs include Dead Eagle Trail, Precious, LA Gun Club and Cowboys & Queens (The Little Black Gallery, 2025). She was made a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society in 2013.
Marc Wilson, a documentary and topographic photographer working on long-term projects across Europe that examine the marks left by conflict and industry. He self-publishes through his imprint two&two press; his seven books include The Last Stand, now in its fourth edition, and A Wounded Landscape, which bears witness to the Holocaust through twenty-two individuals' stories gathered across twenty-four countries.
Paul Treacy, a Dublin-born, London-based street photographer who studied at the International Center of Photography in New York and makes and binds his photobooks by hand in very small editions, including the Passerby series and Solivagants. His is a playful approach, finding mystery and menace in the everyday and sequencing it into intriguing little books with very few words.
Hark1karan, a London-born community photographer who documents Panjabi and Sikh life and the many layers of London culture, building his work on long, trusted relationships with the people he photographs. He funds and self-publishes his own books, among them PIND, KISAAN, Grass Roots and Zimmers of Southall, and his work has been shown at the Venice Biennale, the Barbican, the ICA, the V&A and Harvard University.
Key information for attendees
Read on for all the information you need to join us at this exciting event.
Location: FUJIFILM House of Photography, 8-9 Long Acre, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 9LH.
Meeting point: 1st Floor, FUJIFILM House of Photography
Date: 6th August 2026
Time: 18:00 – 21:00
Price: £10.00
What can you expect from this event?
An honest, working conversation rather than a series of talks, with the books themselves out on the table. Expect candid discussion of money as well as craft: how a book is financed, what a print run really costs, how pricing, promotion and a clear sense of audience turn a body of work into a book that reaches readers, and when to approach a publisher, publish yourself, or simply have a go with the printer you already have.
What will you learn?
You will leave with a clearer and more realistic picture of how a photobook is made and sold: the routes to print, from trade publishers to self-publishing, crowdfunding, zines and handmade editions, how to judge which suits your work at a given moment, and how the same project can move between them over time; how authors finance a book, set a print run and arrive at a price, and why understanding your audience shapes everything from design to distribution; the editing, sequencing and design decisions that give a book its form, the collaborators, designers, editors, translators and printers, who help shape it, and where writing belongs in it; how books actually reach readers, through fairs, galleries, websites, events and word of mouth; why it is worth pulling a project together even when there is no obvious market for it yet; and what a collective offers that working alone does not.
Itinerary
18:00 Doors open, welcome from FUJIFILM House of Photography
18:30 Introduction to The Photobook Club Collective and the panel (Gabrielle Motola & Panellists)
18:40 The books: each author presents their book in hand and the route it took to print, from trade publishers to self- publishing, crowdfunding, zines and handmade editions
19:05 The creative life of the book: edit, sequence, design, text and the collaborators who shape it
19:20 The business of the book: financing, print runs, pricing, audience and distribution
19:35 On collectives: making a book alone and making one supported by peers
19:45 Q&A
20:00 - 21:00 Networking, book signing and sales
