Jonathan Burnham, president of Miramax Books, who startled the publishing world last fall by forking out $625,000 for a novel called Bergdorf Blondes by Vogue editor Plum Sykes, concurs. Theres no doubt that publishers will be prepared to overpay for a major new literary voice, he says. But a big advance puts a huge pressure on the novel to succeed. This peculiar marketplace entrance-performance is something that everybody has to do now. William Faulkner didnt go around and meet ten publishers, who then participated in a heated auction that was publicized by Keith Kelly in the Post the next day.