Author Diana Gabaldon Owes Some of Her Success to Her Fans in Cyberspace
by Erik Lacitis, Staff Columnist
Seattle Times, copyright © 1997, all rights reserved.

17 January 1997

Out there on the Internet, they knew about Diana Gabaldon long before she became a publishing sensation with a No. 1 book on the bestseller lists, long before she got mentions like this recent one in The Wall Street Journal:

“A 900-page hybrid of romance and science-fiction by a little-known Arizona novelist has become the publishing world’s first surprise blockbuster hit of 1997, thanks in large part to the author’s cultlike following on the World Wide Web.”

A little help from her cyberspace friends did help Gabaldon. But like in the nonelectronic world, it also helped that Gabaldon is an incredibly disciplined woman. A Bill Gates would have been a success even if personal computers had never been invented.

Gabaldon is the kind of person who makes you feel guilty that your big plans for the night are renting a video and ordering pizza. While you’re watching “The Nutty Professor,” Gabaldon, after her three kids and husband are asleep, is up at midnight answering e-mail and laptopping away on her latest project.

The discipline came early. Her parents had always told Diana Gabaldon to get a good education so she could support her children. She did, earning a Ph.D. in ecology, eventually becoming a research professor in environmental sciences at Arizona State University.

Cyberspace has always played a big role in Gabaldon’s career. When she was a professor - she quit a couple of years ago when the novels began selling - Gabaldon started a publication called “Science Software,” aimed at other scientists like herself. For the heck of it, she also wrote comic book strips for Walt Disney.

But, unbelievably, Gabaldon felt unfulfilled. She wanted to write fiction. With the university library at her disposal, Gabaldon decided on historical novels.

Thus, in 1988, the “Outlander” series was born, telling the adventures of Claire Randall, a former World War II combat nurse with “a husband in one century and a lover in another.” The plots may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but obviously there is a big niche for them. It is the fourth book in the series, “Drums of Autumn,” that just beat out Michael Crichton’s new book on the bestseller list.

When Gabaldon began writing fiction, she didn’t even tell her husband. At home, when he walked by, she’d press a button and switch screens to make it appear she was working on a technical article.

However, by then Gabaldon was a regular member of “The Literary Forum” on CompuServe, one of the online services, in which writers talk to each other electronically.

In one such electronic conversation, Gabaldon was having an argument with a writer for a photo magazine, a man, about what it was like to be pregnant. To show the male writer that he had no clue about pregnancy, Gabaldon posted an excerpt from her then-secret novel: “In the early days, it’s a bit like belly gas . . . Just there - like little bubbles rippling through your belly. But then later, you feel the child move, and it’s like a fish on your line and then gone - like a quick tug, but so soon you’re not sure you felt it . . .”

The members of the forum began asking Gabaldon to post more of her writings, and she did.

That led her to electronically talk with already-published authors about how to get an agent to read her book, and that led to an introduction to Perry Knowlton, a top agent in New York. Four days later, based only on seeing chunks from the book, Knowlton called, saying three publishers wanted to sign a contract.

Her cyberspace friends kept helping Gabaldon. There are a couple of Gabaldon Web pages that feature interviews with her, as well as excerpts from her books. It all keeps promoting the novels, as thousands of Internet surfers keep finding out about her.

As she travels, Diana Gabaldon always takes her laptop with her. It’s her third one, a generic one, as she tends to wear out the letters on the keyboard from typing so much. That’s what happens when you write 300,000-word manuscripts and answer hundreds of e-mails from fans.

Oh, I see we’re at the end of today’s column. Damn, it’s exhausting writing about incredibly disciplined people.