Don, what you need is an editor who understands math and astronomy. They're out there, I promise. And that scheme the publisher told you is true of old-school publishing. They pay the writer a couple thousand bucks(yeah right) then the bookstore pays half the cover price, and if it sells the writer gets 0-20% of that sale. Oh, and that's if you get $50 in royalties(not sales). That's why more and more of us are going the indie route.

Clive's book is screaming to be edited properly and re-released as an indie book. I can edit for grammar, but the spatial math is so far outside my world it's on Jupiter.