Not for fiction. For non-literary (i.e. non-household name, tech-oriented) non-fiction - definitely. It's a production line, and it's rare for authors to do mo

Not for fiction. For non-literary (i.e. non-household name, tech-oriented) non-fiction - definitely. It's a production line, and it's rare for authors to do more than one or two books. Some bigger publishers really do have spreadsheet models of likely sales, and they base their acceptable advance offers on them.