'Readers in residence' to appear around Edinburgh as city marks 20 years as UNESCO City of Literature

A band of volunteers will be positioned to be visibly reading at iconic locations around Edinburgh in a bid to encourage people to put their phones away and read a book.

Meanwhile, Six-Minute Reads will see the publication of a digital pamphlet about reding, which provides links to excerpts of work by Scottish writers including Ian Rankin, Val McDermid and a story from comic The Beano among others, in a bid to encourage people to read while commuting to work.

This comes as a new report commissioned to mark the impact of literature on Edinburgh two decades after it became the world's first UNESCO City of Literature, found literature contributes £50.9 million a year to Edinburgh’s economy.

The report found publishing alone accounts for £19.3m, while more than 140m books by contemporary Edinburgh-based authors have been sold worldwide, rising to over 650m when the global phenomenon of Harry Potter is included.

Dr Harriet MacMillan, director of Edinburgh City of Literature Trust, said the Six Minute Read project featuring around 15 authors, which will launch on 10 October, would be rolled out Scotland-wide.

She said: “The Six Minutes Reads project was inspired by the statistic that to read for just six minutes a day can reduce stress by up to 68 per cent. We’re giving people something to read on their commute and engaging them in an activity and reminding them of that benefit, while also promoting Scottish work.”

She said around 20 venues including the National Galleries of Scotland and Edinburgh’s Filmhouse cinema had already agreed to sign up to the Readers in Residence programme, which will begin in September.

She said: “We’re recruiting volunteers to essentially set themselves up in a public space. They can chat to anyone who might want to chat about reading, but the primary driver of that is to be modelling reading practice in public, to be there, to be visibly holding a book, phone away and to remind anyone of that benefit of reading.”

Dr MacMillan said funding was needed to support the writing and publishing industry, which she warned was "not visible" compared to other arts sectors such as theatre and called for the creation of a Literature Strategy for Edinburgh.

She said: “I think the challenge we’ve always had with literature is our infrastructure is not always visible in the way a theatre is. Other cultural sectors are much more tangible in a way, they’ve got ticket sales and measurements. Book sales actually don’t cover the full picture of what literary activity is, so this study really lays it out very clearly precisely what that value is to Edinburgh.

“Literature needs a broader funding base, it needs multi-year support, not just in public terms, although it needs more of that and I think it needs funding that is willing to invest in an infrastructure that is not always visible.”

This year is the National Year of Reading. Research carried out to mark the event earlier this year found only three in ten children in Scotland enjoy reading in their spare time.

Dr MacMillan said: “The National Year of Reading campaign has been built around the fact we know reading for pleasure is in decline and attention spans are under constant assault and if we’re not careful we’re going to have a real crisis in reading. Part of it is an investment in space and place and part of it is an investment in people and that includes writers, who as we all know, are struggling.”

The study also found that Edinburgh’s public libraries welcome more than 1.6m visits, while the city’s literary landscape is sustained by a dense network of organisations, events and activity taking place throughout the year. More than 50 book launches and “meet the author” events take place each month, alongside a programme of festivals that together welcome over 250,000 audiences annually.