As for a wider availabilty, that made me think of a blogpost by Alec in 2010, about the part the classic mainstream media should or could play in bringing these photobooks to a mainstram, coffee table book liking audience.
http://littlebrownmushroom.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/an-open-letter-to-the-new-york-times-book-review/

Again, with the vinyl comparison. It was when mainstream media starting writing about this subcuture that was still spinning vinyl, that it eventually found it’s way to the mainstream audience (again).

As for videos, that is an interesting point. Clearly the potential is much bigger for a video, although I think it is worth pointing out that there is also a qualitative difference in the way that we look at a photobook with the way that we look at a video. For a video with 1 million clicks how many people actually watched it or more than 30 seconds of it. How many will remember having seen it after a week or two? To me it does seem like a more ‘disposable’ vector through which to present a project. If reaching the broadest possible audience is the aim, then, as you say, photobooks are probably not the way to go.

you say “Most photographers have to pay for their books themselves or at least contribute a significant amount of the financing” and this because “Photobooks are pretty hard to sell and are expensive to make.”
so the best way to make them easier to sell was to create a request.

I think one of the started point of this story was “The photobook. An history vol I”, by Parr and Badger.
for me, this was the born of the “photobook system” as we know today.
I don’t mean “system” in a negative way (I think all the photographers must absolutely thank forever Martin and Gerry for their great work), but, after that, we began all to think that a photobook could become an “Object of Desire”, expecially if it was published in very few copies and immediatly sold out.

I agree with you about “reprint” a book if it has success, but then we can’t speak of “limited edition”. a book of novel or a romance has normally more then one edition. if I’m a collector (or only a book lover) maybe I’ll look to get the first one.

the question seems to become more and more complicated and I don’t think to have a final answer.

but to come back to “How big do we really think the photobook market can get?” I think one of the answer could be the Baptiste’s one: “if we want our project to reach more people, then the book might not be the main vector, but a side product.”

what I hope (and try to do everyday) is that photographers try to be less and less self-referential, going out of their niche, from the “safe harbour” of Photography to the open and “mistereous” sea of Image.

Aesthetic, commercial, easy, this project was perhaps all of this, but it was a photobook, and for many people i guess the first one they ever bought. In this regard i have ended up thinking very highly of Arthus-Bertrand endeavor.

Just for the conversation’s sake, let me stick to the “Peckerwood” example: intelligent, smart, conceptual. All of that. But are those good qualities for a book to reach a “wider audience”? The amount of knowledge about the medium, its history, and its contemporary practices necessary to enjoy such a project are just enormous. It is a great project, in a small niche, for the small group of connaisseurs that we like to think we are (in varying degrees). And as such, it has had great success. I doubt it could reach a much wider audience.

Regarding the issue of audience size. I think that there is a central question that i keep going back to as a photographer. What is the goal when putting a project out in the world?
In September i reluctantly attended a lecture by Brian Storm of Mediastorm, and it is there that i had a revelation. He took an example very close to what we are talking about here, a book with a print run of 1000. But what if more than 1000 people could be interested in this project? Ok, so the guy does multimedia videos online, and that’s what he was selling. When i asked what his average figure was for viewers, his answer was one million viewers. I believe he caught my attention there.

So those might be two possible responses to the concern for a wider audience. If we want the “general public” to be interested, let us start with speaking with a vocabulary which they can grasp (and i’m not putting down anyone by saying that someone not from this milieu might miss some of its in and outs). And if we want our project to reach more people, then the book might not be the main vector, but a side product.

“I think the question is if we consider the book as an “end” or instead the “means” of a project.´´ Andrea, you said it all.

To eyecurious: Why do photographers that are selfemployed think someone else should pay to publise their work. The baker around the corner pays for his bread too. if there is anyone out there thinking someone else must pay to publise their work, i would recommend they spend some time offline in the real world.