Most celebrity authors sell slender proposals for hefty advances before even beginning to write, but Mr. Gerstner showed them about 100 pages of his book.

After five big-selling books in eight years, with the weight of a hefty advance hanging over him, he can't put any flesh on the bones of his next book.

Often when prominent people get paid hefty advances to write their memoirs, they pay any collaborator or ghost writer out of their own advance.

Analysts also took comfort in the fact that durable goods, accounting for 37 percent of total sales, posted a hefty advance, of eight-tenths of 1 percent.

The suspect kept the hefty advance and supplied what turned out to be fabricated documents, officials said.

(Celebrity memoirs are among the top takers of hefty advances.)

Whatever uneasiness the price figures inspired involved either the higher "core" rate or the fact that raw materials other than food and energy posted another hefty advance.

In publishing, a hefty advance not only pays a writer's bills; it also usually means a publisher is planning to spend big money and effort promoting the book.

The Government's main economic-forecasting gauge posted its second straight hefty advance in March, for the strongest two-month performance in more than a year.

After an initial burst of enthusiasm and a hefty advance, Dr. Guth went through three publishers before his book saw print.