Diana Gabaldon had a hour-long Q&A session at San Diego Comic-Con covering how angry letters and Doctor Who oddly played a part in her success.

Diana Gabaldon’s highly successful Outlander novels are being adapted to the screen by Starz starting on August 9. Gabaldon first started penning what would later become Outlander back in 1991. Her most recent novel in the series, Written in My Own Heart’s Blood, just came out in June.

During her Q&A session, moderated by the head of Barnes and Noble’s e-book division, Gabaldon leaves no doubt as to where her feisty heroine, Claire, comes from. Claire speaks her mind, and does not suffer fools easily, nor in fact, does Gabaldon.

Gabaldon related her ongoing battle with Barnes and Noble to stop shelving her books in the romance section. “I read romance”, she explained, “and I knew I hadn’t written a romance”. Barnes and Noble was just about the only chain to place her books, for reasons best known to them, in the romance section. After getting nowhere with various executives, Gabaldon fired off an angry letter to the head of the company that stated, “You want to know why [name of competitor] sells 40% more of my books than you do? Because they are not stuffing them in the effing romance section.”

Cue calls from the presidents, several executives, and the head of marketing and the books were placed in historical fiction, and the sales boomed. The head of marketing stated, “I guess you had a point there.”

On the lighter side, Gabaldon told the story of how a late night episode of Doctor Who inspired her setting of 18th century Scotland and her protagonist, Jamie Fraser. The 2nd Doctor had a companion named Jamie who was a Scot in a kilt. He was adventurous, full of life, and not to mention sexy in a kilt. Gabaldon, knowing next to nothing about Scotland and its history, decided it was as good of a place as any to start and Outlander was born.

Check out the entire session below. Hypable will be covering the Outlander red carpet tonight as well as conducting interviews with the cast on Saturday.