Do crossword puzzles cost more to make?

March 5, 2005 7:25 AM

Why is it so hard to find a magazine of 100% crossword puzzles? Do crossword puzzle creators charge more than other puzzle creators?

I've noticed that even the magazines that advertise "all crossword puzzles" on their covers actually seem to mean "mostly crossword puzzles". There are tons of word search and logic puzzle magazines that contain nothing else, but they always throw extra puzzle types into the crossword magazines. I'm wondering if this a calculated marketing concept or if it's a cost issue.

posted by Slack-a-gogo to media & arts (9 comments total)

You're just not buying the right kind of crossword puzzle magazines, I think. I've seen plenty of "Easy! Fun!" crossword magazines that have nothing but crosswords in them.

Have you considered upping the ante a bit? You can get a book of 1001 New York Times Crossword Puzzles for twelve bucks. They have many other softcover crossword compilations from the Times available for sale that should satiate your crossword needs without spoiling your day with an errant word jumble.

(Now my interest is piqued... I would love to see a reply to the rest of Slack's question, documenting the copyright & payment process for crosswords. Are they works-for-hire? Newspaper puzzles seem to get compiled into books without a lot of legal trouble.)
posted by bcwinters at 8:18 AM on March 5, 2005

I wrote 15x15 themed crosswords for a city magazine and an airline magazine for a few years and got $75 each for them. Don't know about reprint rights etc for such things but mine were pretty specific themes that wouldn't really resell.

I notice that most bookstores will carry in their blowout sections crossword puzzle books that, when on sale, cost about the same as a magazine. NYT, LAT, and Schuster all publish a lot of the spiral bound softcovers that tend to eventually go on sale for $5-10.

(A bitter and cynical editor once told me that the word search puzzles should only be sold by the banana since it was all just typing bs anyway. My snobby brain agrees.)
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies at 8:39 AM on March 5, 2005

I would bet that the puzzle is a deliverable and the "author" retains no rights in most cases.

The New York Times has compilations for each day of the week, also, I think. As I recall, the NYT crossword puzzle gets progressively harder as the week goes on, with Sunday being the big one. So for some people a book of sunday crossword puzzles might be just the ticket, and for others (like me) maybe a thursday or something.
posted by RustyBrooks at 8:40 AM on March 5, 2005

The New York Times has compilations for each day of the week, also, I think. As I recall, the NYT crossword puzzle gets progressively harder as the week goes on, with Sunday being the big one. So for some people a book of sunday crossword puzzles might be just the ticket, and for others (like me) maybe a thursday or something.

They do get progessively harder throughout the week, with Monday being the easiest and Saturday being the hardest. The Sunday puzzle, however, while longer than the other six, is definitely not the hardest. I think it's about Thursday-level hard.

I'd definitely recommend the NYTimes 1,001 puzzles book bcwinters suggested. I'm working my way through it slowly and it should last me roughly the rest of my life. If you're concerned about the size of the book, you can always rip pages out of it. I do this to bring on planes. The nice thing about the NYTimes crosswords are that you'll know immediately if you're in over your head. They're very consistently edited. If you get halfway through the puzzle without geting any clues, that's a Saturday puzzle.
posted by MarkAnd at 10:13 AM on March 5, 2005

Another vote for the NYTimes books -- when I was recovering from surgery a few months ago, several people got the smaller spiral-bound collections (50 puzzles to a book) for me. Of course, I was so out of it on codeine, that my mom was the one who mostly worked 'em... but the point remains.

And say hi to Mrs.-A-Go-Go for me, wouldya? :)
posted by scody at 10:27 AM on March 5, 2005

Me too, for the NY Times books. Right now I have a NYT Sunday Crossword Omnibus, and NYT "Toughest Crossword Puzzles". Very cool.
posted by taz at 10:32 AM on March 5, 2005

Also, though it may be a tad too late, you can buy reduced-price crossword-a-day calendars. Every January I buy a new calendar, because I don't care if I'm days behind -- it's over 300 LA Times crosswords for $5!
posted by NickDouglas at 1:00 PM on March 5, 2005

So for some people a book of sunday crossword puzzles might be just the ticket, and for others (like me) maybe a thursday or something.

I never could get the hang of Thursdays.

I'm assuming you've exhausted the seemingly inexhaustible supply of Dell Crossword titles, as well as Amazon's selections. Beyond that and Games magazine, and these links, I'm not sure what to do for ya.
posted by dhartung at 1:31 AM on March 6, 2005

The nice thing about the NYTimes crosswords are that you'll know immediately if you're in over your head. They're very consistently edited.

This is very true, much more so than for, say, the Games magazine star rating system.
posted by redfoxtail at 8:20 AM on March 6, 2005