At the beginning of this trimester, all Publishing students were offered the opportunity to participate in the Big Read initiative.
The Big Read was launched in 2015 at Kingston University, as a scheme that aimed at increasing student engagement and initiating conversations through a shared reading experience. Every arriving student received a free copy of Nick Hornby’s About a Boy, and the project sparked very positive reactions from both the staff and students. Edinburgh Napier University joined the Big Read initiative last year, promoting Matt Haig’s The Humans.
For this year’s Big Read, we decided to do something a little different to Kingston, and our project puts students at the centre. We are using Detective McLevy’s Casebook, a collection of short stories by a 19th-century Edinburgh detective James McLevy, said to be the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. The Publishing staff and students at Edinburgh Napier University produced this special edition back in 2012, tying it in with the 125th Sherlock Holmes Anniversary and launching it at the first ever Bloody Scotland, Scotland’s International Crime Writing Festival. So, even from the choice of the book, #NapierBigRead is truly student focussed.
I knew immediately that I wanted to participate in the Big Read project. As a fan of Sherlock Holmes and detective fiction in general, I was fascinated by the book itself, and delighted at the prospect of being involved in a real-life promotional campaign. As part of the events team I still have a lot to organise before the book’s official launch, but last Monday I had the opportunity to participate in an off-campus event which proved to be a brilliant hands-on marketing experience. Continue reading “Napier Big Read: Participating in a Promotional Event”
