What To Expect When You're Expecting

Justine Larbalestier - First Novel Advance: "An advance is a sum of money that is paid (or advanced) to a writer by a publisher against the future earnings of a book. I sold my first book (not a novel) to Wesleyan University Press for US$1,000. I got to keep that money no matter what happened, but I didn't get any more cash from Wesleyan until the royalties on the book exceeded the $1,000 needed to pay Wesleyan back for this advance."