First edition published in Chinese and English as 熱帶島讀：攝影書與自出版 Tropical Reading: Photobook and Self-Publishing by Fotobook DUMMIES Day Ⓒ Fotobook DUMMIES Day and pon ding, 2022. Second edition published in English as Tropical Reading: Photobook and Self-Publishing by Fotobook DUMMIES Day Ⓒ Fotobook DUMMIES Day and Limestone Books, 2024

Tropical Reading: Photobook and Self-Publishing illustrate the photography practitioners and artist collectives from each city in Southeast Asia, examining why they chose to get into self-publishing. It explores how independent art bookstores came to be the social parlours of the self-publishing crowd. Furthermore, observes how the outsider artists, archives and arts initiatives of Southeast Asia came to shape the face of photography and self-publishing in their respective cities. The index is a compilation of our project field research, condensing the profiles of all the interviewees – from people to bookstores to organizations – to make a kind of alternative Yellow Pages for the Southeast Asian art scene.