Having lost my canon photo printer to printhead rot, I have been using cheap/free services of 6x4 prints for my photo sketchbook. The prints are respectable for, at times, the price of postage and almost the right size for my a5 concertina sketchbook. Having used these cheap prints for weeks in my sketchbook, I started playing with the idea of making mini sketchbooks/zines/booklets for projects.
I tried Japanese stab binding, concertinas, and perfect bound techniques. These were either too awkward, time consuming, or failures - particularly perfect bound as the print papers are too thin for the application of glue. Additionally, given that I am dealing with single prints or "loose leaf", having one print per "page" made it very limiting.
One solution I came up with is to use postage tape and join up pages and create signatures. The tape is placed on one side and excess is cut off.
Double sided tape is applied to the other side and pages/prints are applied, forming four pages.
These signatures are gathered in the right order and glued at the spine. You can either steal your room mates flower press or use strong clips as a substitute for a book binding press. It can take several coating of PVA glue, making sure contact is made between the signatures.
The result is a strong binding that has a flat flay.
Probably.
I would argue that for small side projects, sketchbooks and limited photobooks, that it is worth it.
Doing it by hand, you have more control. You want an unconventional feature -do it. Have access to a photocopier or a convenient/cheaper source of prints? Use that. Make each edition different if you wanted. You have freedom to apply contextual patterns and themes within the project to the narrative through the physical presentation of your work.