Ritual Studies International
Ritual Studies International was originally created as a way of making connections that were impossible or difficult to make using standard book-publishing methods. How could a scholar link writing in a book, with video, audio, art, and color photography? At first we tried DVD, but as a medium it outdated quickly. It is not yet standard, but easy enough to produce books that are mimicked by an e-book. Even so, most scholarly e-books don’t include video, audio, or even pictures.
The second reason for Ritual Studies International was to rescue my own out-of-print books. Readers kept asking for them just as POD (print-on-demand) became an option. I began to use Amazon’s Create Space, an independent publishing platform; Create Space is now subsumed in KindleDirect. It never occurred to me that POD books could make more money than books published by university presses. With university presses I’d make, say, 15%. With self-publishing, 30%. There are two obvious problems. One is peer-review. The other is marketing. My books and articles were peer-reviewed. Amazon markets to everybody. Oxford University Press, which pays me zero for co-editing the Ritual Studies Series, markets to “the right” people, scholars, some of whom are interested in ritual studies. Marketing remain a problem I probably won’t solve because I am not a marketeer, advertiser, or business person.
There is a third reason: recognition. Friends and associates have sometimes produced compelling works that standard publishers won’t publish. If there is a link to ritual, why not?
Ritual Studies International exists for:
* reprinting or publishing peer-reviewed scholarly books
* producing and copyrighting videos
* publishing ritually significant works of art and literature
* facilitating international consulting
RSI Scholarly Books
Endings in Ritual Studies, 2020, by Ronald L. Grimes
Excursions in Ritual Studies, 2020, by Barry Stephenson
Fictive Ritual, 2014, by Ronald L. Grimes
Beginnings in Ritual Studies, 3rd edition, 2013, by Ronald L. Grimes
Symbol and Conquest: Public Ritual and Drama in Santa Fe, 2nd edition, 2013, by Ronald L. Grimes
Ritual Criticism, 2nd edition, 2010, by Ronald L. Grimes