earn out
v. phr.— «Consider the advance system, whereby a publisher pays an author a nonreturnable up-front fee for a book. If the book doesn’t “earn out,” in the industry parlance, the publisher simply eats the cost.» —“Books Gone Wild: The Digital Age Reshapes Literature” by Lev Grossman Time Jan. 21, 2009. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
A Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, listener has been pondering the saying It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good, and specifically whether she uses it correctly. The expression usually appears as It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good, means that...
The Great Passage is an anime about a young man who steps up to take over a project to edit a new dictionary, eventually becoming a full-fledged lexicographer. This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Anime About Dictionaries” You and I...