Another publisher is even more blunt: The writer has got two or three years to make the money back. If he doesnt, that big advance might be the last nickel he ever earns in the book business. So maybe its no longer publish or perish; now its also possible to publish and perish. The time-honored tradition of a novelists serving an apprenticeship through his early thirties is waning quickly, says Morgan Entrekin of Grove/Atlantic, who gave the world Fraziers Cold Mountain six years ago.