As always, I am once again missing my own deadlines, but at least I am consistent! Along with being sick, wrecking my truck, and preparing to have friends in for Thanksgiving, I have been working through contract negotiations for the entrelac book. I have always believed in contracts because in most cases it helps maintain friendships and keeps things amenable between others. But this process has been causing me to think about the phrase -- Win Win.
Contract negotiations are about give and take. For me, the process began with my publisher providing me a boilerplate book contract. I did a quick review with them and then passed it on to my attorney. Not surprisingly, the publisher's contract was weighted extremely heavily in their favor. But why wouldn't it?? After all, it is THEIR contract. So next my attorney and I went over key point that he thought were a bit too much and we developed a "counter proposal". That now has been sent on to my publisher and they are forwarding it on to their lawyer. Honestly, I only expect one or two more rounds of negotiation until we come to an agreement, but is this a WIN-WIN?
The whole concept of negotiation, of give and take, is that neither of us end up with everything that we want, just "enough" of the stuff that we want. So is that really a win? Now I am not saying that we both won't be happy, because we probably will. I just am not sure that I can call it a win. Honestly, this is probably my overly competitive side showing, but a win is a win and a tie is a tie and they are NOT the same.
So it comes back to my original question can both side really win, or is that not what we are actually trying to achieve? SATISFIED-SATISFIED or HAPPY-HAPPY, that I can see being the result of a successful negotiation, but I guess it does sound a bit goofy. Well, even so, here's to HAPPY-HAPPY contract signing in the next few weeks!
Contract negotiations are about give and take. For me, the process began with my publisher providing me a boilerplate book contract. I did a quick review with them and then passed it on to my attorney. Not surprisingly, the publisher's contract was weighted extremely heavily in their favor. But why wouldn't it?? After all, it is THEIR contract. So next my attorney and I went over key point that he thought were a bit too much and we developed a "counter proposal". That now has been sent on to my publisher and they are forwarding it on to their lawyer. Honestly, I only expect one or two more rounds of negotiation until we come to an agreement, but is this a WIN-WIN?
The whole concept of negotiation, of give and take, is that neither of us end up with everything that we want, just "enough" of the stuff that we want. So is that really a win? Now I am not saying that we both won't be happy, because we probably will. I just am not sure that I can call it a win. Honestly, this is probably my overly competitive side showing, but a win is a win and a tie is a tie and they are NOT the same.
So it comes back to my original question can both side really win, or is that not what we are actually trying to achieve? SATISFIED-SATISFIED or HAPPY-HAPPY, that I can see being the result of a successful negotiation, but I guess it does sound a bit goofy. Well, even so, here's to HAPPY-HAPPY contract signing in the next few weeks!
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