Diana Gabaldon is one of those authors whose popularity seems to be ever increasing, as reflected in her latest payday: more than $10 million in total from her four major publishers worldwide for a new three-book deal. And it all came about because she had planned to do a novella as a break from her ongoing Outlander series of historical novels for Delacorte. The central figure was to be Lord John, an 18th-century aristocrat who is a favorite figure in the series. In the end, however, Gabaldon found he had inspired a full-length novel, and when her agent, Russell Galen, and her editor, Jackie Cantor, read it, they decided it could readily expand into a three-book series. Here and in Frankfurt, Galen and his foreign rights man, Danny Baror, sold the package not only to Delacorte but also to Doubleday Canada, Random House U.K. and Random/Bertelsmann in Germany. Meanwhile, other foreign rights sales continue.