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You have to be a celebrity to get an advance before you write the book (and some authors are indeed celebrities). For most published authors, they need to write the book, spend time soliciting reads from agents, then wait while the agent sends the book around, and once they have a publisher and negotiate the contract, they'll get an advance against royalties. This advance needs to last a good long while since it may be a year or more before the book actually hits the shelves, and the advance has to be earned back, and even when the book is in the black, the publisher has several months to pay the royalties, and even then they'll withhold half or more "against returns."
From the publishers' side, the chain bookstores will make or break a book. In return for a large order they'll demand killer discounts and even cash payments for display space. They are notoriously slow to pay, and when they decide to cut bait on a book, the publisher is on the hook for return shipping to get the unsold books back (or they'll work out some other way to recycle them). The stores might only ship back the covers, which is why publishers admonish people not to buy books without covers--the store has gotten a refund on the book and is supposed to destroy it, not sell it in a bargain bin.
If this seems like an incredibly slow and inefficient system, remember that it's "traditional" and it's the system the publishers are defending to the death. Authors, meanwhile, are actively looking for alternatives, and so are many readers.
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