70 Part I: Preparing to Negotiate

After that negotiation was resolved, another specific negotiation involved

the publishing contract. For that I hired an experienced New York lawyer
who did his magic quickly and effectively. Basically, the contract was
accepted as offered with some clarifications, but very little substantive
changes. Then — and only then — could I negotiate with my editor as to
what exactly “comprehensive book” meant. Fortunately, we had a large area
of agreement on the subject.

Setting the Opening Offer

The opening offer is nothing more and nothing less than the first specific
statement of what you’re looking for in a negotiation. After you have set your
goals for the negotiation, you can consider the opening offer. For example, in
a job interview the opening offer is the salary you’re seeking. Don’t look for
any hard-and-fast rules or magic formulas. To determine your opening offer,
you should draw heavily on the goals and limits you set and the information
you have gathered while preparing for the negotiation. Obviously, your open-
ing offer should be higher than the goals you have set for yourself. But it
shouldn’t be so outrageously high as to be off-putting to the other side or
make you look foolish or inexperienced. Figure 5-1 depicts this relationship
graphically.

Negotiating
space

Figure 5-1:
The relation-
Limits
ship among
your goals,
limits, and
opening Goals
offer.
Opening offer