This is exactly the sort of thing I love reading about- forewarned is forearmed, and all that. Is there a particular method for sorting out how much a first-time author's advance will be, as it relates to the P&L? You touched on it above but I'm not clear on how that's calculated. Apologies if you've addressed this elsewhere; if you *have*, I'll happily accept the rolled-up newspaper and a directive to go and hunt.