I stopped into a local B. Dalton (apparently they're really Barnes and Noble behind the scenes these days) while my daughter was shopping yesterday. They had a selection of around ten "store employees' picks" up on the wall behind the cash register. I was surprised and pleased to see that _The Phoenix Guards_ was prominently displayed up there with the non-fantasy and non-fiction picks. It made me wonder, because I've never really understood how the whole publishing thing works - how do sales of books translate into royalties for authors? When a book goes into multiple printings, is the author still paid an advance for each printing or is it somehow computed based on actual sales?