Diana Gabaldon recalls how first Outlander book 'almost cancelled'
- Published
Diana Gabaldon spoke at the University of Glasgow's Outlander conference
Best-selling Outlander author Diana Gabaldon has created nine beloved books and a seven-season TV series - but the franchise almost didn't happen.
The American writer told fans in Glasgow her first novel was almost cancelled because publishers could not decide what to do with it.
It took more than a year to go on sale as a debate raged about where it would sit on bookshop shelves.
The series has boosted Scottish tourism with fans flocking to Scotland to visit the book and TV programme's locations.
The author spoke at the word's first international academic Outlander conference at the University of Glasgow, external, which has been the backdrop for several scenes in the Starz TV series.
Expert scholars and Outlander fans have come together for events in the city, exploring themes such as Jacobite history, screen production, Scottish tourism, Gaelic and Scots, costume design, fandom, main character Claire Fraser's medicine, and witchcraft.
Ms Gabaldon - originally an academic herself - was awarded an honorary doctorate by the university in June last year.
The drama series stars Catriona Balfe and Sam Heughan as Claire and Jamie Fraser
Speaking about her first book, she said: "It took the publishers 18 months to figure out what to do with it. I learned later that they came very close to cancelling the contract and giving me back the book because they couldn't decide how to sell it.
"This was before Amazon where a book can be classified as several things at once and people can pick off the web what they want, and they still get the same book.
"Back in the day it was only bookstores, you had to put a book on a certain shelf, the shelf had to have a label and the book also had to have that label."
She said the decision to sell it as a romance came as a shock.
"My agent finally called me up and said they had decided to publish it but sell it as a romance. I said, 'What?' that isn't what I wrote.
"He pointed out that a best seller in fantasy fiction was 50,000 copies in paperback while in romance it is 500,000 copies. So we sold it as romance."
'Too weird'
She said that the success of the books was down to readers' recommendations.
"My first editor said to me early on these have to be word of mouths books because they are too weird to describe, which is totally true and that is also true about the word of mouth.
"So that being the case it made total sense to expose the book to 500,000 people in the romance category who will go out and tell their friends and the word will spread.
"So we did that and that is exactly what happened."
The Outlander series is currently nine books, with the author working on the tenth - and believed to be the final - book.
It follows the story of a post-World War Two nurse visiting Scotland who accidentally time travels to the Jacobite era.
Roger (Richard Rankin) and Brianna (Sophie Skelton) are main characters in the show
It has now become one of the bestselling book series of all time and spawned the popular TV series, currently in its seventh season.
Ms Gabaldon's talk was entitled, '"Why Scotland? Why Not Mexico?" Genes, Borders, Culture and Fiction: Why They Matter and When They Don't'.
In it, she explained why she picked Scotland as the location of Outlander.
She said: "What I learned from my research and contact with Scots is that Scots are, and historically were, very literate. They wrote down things. They also have a very strong oral culture, they told their stories.
"They also have a lot of history available. Then there is the nature of Scottish history, it has a lot of heroes and heroines as well as conflict which is what you need for a good story."
The conference runs until Saturday and has seen fringe events including music concerts and battle re-enactments in the university's famous cloisters.
Transformative impact
Senior Lecturer in Gaelic at the University, Gillebride Macmillan, who has appeared in the programme, said it had been really important for the Gaelic language.
"It's so important for a minoritized language, such as Gaelic, to be seen on a world level, on a world stage, and Outlander gives Gaelic that opportunity.
"And I think it's been fantastic to hear Gaelic spoken by the actors and in the books, and also the use of Gaelic music, Gaelic song. I've been very lucky myself to be a part of that and I think it's been an incredibly positive thing for the language.
"Which I think has been born out by things such as, one and a half million people learning Gaelic in Duolingo. Obviously, many people are learning Gaelic for many different reasons, but Outlander has been one of the major factors for that."
Prof Willy Maley, professor of Renaissance studies (English Literature), at the university, said: "Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series has had a transformative impact on Scottish culture, generating global interest in the history, languages and landscapes of Scotland.
"Vivid and visceral, Outlander is an otherworldly but never unworldly phenomenon that takes a time-travelling nurse-turned-doctor and propels her from 1946 to 1743, two worlds of war that collide in an elaborate and painstaking reconstruction that make the series much more than historical fiction and more an innovative and pioneering rethinking of how we excavate and examine the narratives of the past.
"Outlander has also been a brilliant boost for the Scottish film industry."
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- Published10 May 2018
