A friend of mine asked yesterday whether I'd get my advance now that the final edits are done. That's how it works in many professions -- you do a job and then get paid -- but it's not quite like that in publishing. At mainstream publishers like mine, an author gets what's called an advance. This is an amount of X dollars that the publisher pays you for the right to publish your book, from which they expect to make money. In the case of ABSENT FRIENDS, what I have with Bantam is a 2 book deal, negotiated by my agent. (More on agents in a future post.) The X dollars in this case is for both books, though in my mind it's 1/2(X) per book. It isn't paid out like that, though. The schedule runs something like this: 1/3(X) on signing (because the first book was done; they'd read it and bought it on the basis of the ms.); 1/6(X) on delivery of final ms. (that's what I just did); 1/12(X) on hardcover publication; 1/3(X) on delivery of the next book; then a series of small payouts on hardcover publication of the next one, paperback publication of AF, and paperback publication of the next. You'll notice this means that now, a year before the contract calls for me to deliver the next book and a good 9 months before publication of AF, I've been paid almost 1/2 of the total. You'll also notice it might be good for me not to spend it like a drunken sailor, because I have to stretch what's left until fall 2006, the projected date of the paperback of the second book.

Tomorrow: the advance, part 2.