Little Known Writer Makes Big Splash With Help of the Net:
The novel Drums of Autumn marks debut by beating Michael Crichton’s book
by David D. Kirkpatrick, Staff Reporter
The Wall Street Journal, copyright © 1997, all rights reserved.

9 January 1997

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 cult-like following on the World Wide Web.

Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon made its debut on The Wall Street Journal’s bestseller list yesterday, landing directly on the No. 1 spot just days after it appeared in stores Dec. 30. Its sales outpaced the book everyone thought would be the biggest fiction blockbuster this month, Michael Cricthon’s Airframe.

The novel’s publisher, Bertelsmann AG’s Delacorte, said it’s been racing to add to its initial print run of 155,000 copies. It has returned to print three times already, for a total print run of 225,000.

“I think anyone would have been surpised by the phenomenal take-off of this book,” says Delacorte’s marketing director Karen Mender. “It’s very hard to describe.”

It is indeed. The fourth book in a series by Ms. Gabaldon, it recounts the adventures of Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser, a passionate British nurse who inadvertantly travels through time to the 18th century Highlands. There she remarries, and, in the latest installment, travels to Charleston, S.C.

Delacorte published Drums of Autumn with minimal marketing fanfare, including only two print advertisements. But Ms. Gabalodn helped beat her own drums with some canny self-marketing on the Internet.

The 45-year-old writer had been posting portions of the novel-in-progress for two years on a Diana Gabaldon web page, where she also answers a stream of questions from fans and offers a helpful map of Scottish clans. The web page also offers autographed copies of her books for sale, and free inscribed bookplate stickers.

“I think the Internet has played quite a bit of a role in the success of my books,” Ms. Gabaldon said in an interview yesterday. The extraordinary payoff for Drums of Autumn is a particular surprise since romance novels are typically pitched at female readers, and the Web is widely viewed as the outpost of men.

While the publishing world may be surprised at Ms. Gabaldon’s success, she herself already saw hints of it last month. In a message to her fans on her web site, she alluded to “those hundreds of correspondents who have written to tell me you are waiting for the book with baited breath.”

She added: “Every time I see such a comment, I have this mental picture of a Faithful Reader, crouched in the hallway near a mousehole, breathing chees fumes. Or perhaps an aquatic variety, delicately munching salmon eggs before submerging and swimming about with mouth wide open, in hopeful expectation of catching a fine trout for dinner. . . .Ladies and Gentlemen . . . . the word is bated.”