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Outlander is many things. The 1991 novel is a historical fiction story, a time travel story, and a fantasy story. But is it a romance novel? Outlander author Diana Gabaldon doesn’t think so, even if her publishers disagree.

“Now that we have Amazon, you can actually be multiple genres and that’s great,” Diana Gabaldon says during New York Comic Con 2022’s Titans of Fantasy panel. “Back in the day the publisher who had bought my book were very enthused but then they started looking at it with an eye to selling it and they say, ‘What are we going to do with this book? We can’t even describe it.’ Don’t ask me, and they didn’t. And consequentially they said, ‘Of all the genres this could be, romance is by far the biggest. We’re going to call it romance.’”

“I said, ‘I like romance. I read romance. And therefore, I know that this is not it. Believe me. If you start selling this to real romance readers, you’re going to have pushback. They may buy it, on the other hand, and if they like the book then so much the better.’ I was talking to my agent, and I said I understand why they want to do that, but I have severe reservations and the main one is that if you do that you will cut off the entire male half of my readership and I said I didn’t write these books [just for women]. They’re women’s fiction. There are things in these books that only men would see and appreciate and I don’t want that to be lost.”

“Well, [my agent was a man] and he said, ‘Yes, I understand. On the other hand, bear in mind that a bestseller in fantasy and science fiction is 50,000 in paperback. A bestseller in romance is 500,000.’ I said, ‘You’ve got a point, sell it as romance [laughs].’ My thought was what counts is to get people to read these because amongst 500,000 romance readers, there will be a number of people who actually read other things, and they will tell their friends and companions who will all come and read those things and over time it will work out. And it kind of did, because here we are.”

Outlander has sold over 25 million copies, making it one of the highest selling romance books ever released. Would it have sold as many copies if it had been marketed as a fantasy book, or would it have gotten lost in the market? We’ll never know for sure, but as Gabaldon says, a book can be many genres.

Are you interested in more Diana Gabaldon? Check out our guide to learn how to read Outlander in release and chronological order.