How to Make a Word Puzzle Book for Amazon KDP

A word puzzle book for Amazon KDP is a paperback whose pages are word searches, crosswords or word scrambles. The files are easy to make; the part that needs care is the arithmetic of pages, the KDP checks on an interior file, and the rights to sell what you made. This guide covers all three, with the real formulas of the LogikLand assistants.

Three word puzzles, three kinds of input

• Word search. It needs word lists. The Word Search assistant draws words from its categories, in the language of the book, or from your own lists, one grid per list. Adult grids go up to 25 x 25, and the four levels differ in the directions the words can take: across and down for Easy, diagonals for Medium, backwards words for Hard, all 8 directions for Extreme.
• Crossword. It needs words and clues. The Crossword assistant builds grids from 11 x 11 to 21 x 21 from its own lists, and the three levels pick words of 3 to 6 letters, 4 to 8 letters and 5 letters or more. With "my words" you write the words and clues yourself.
• Word scramble. It needs only words. The Word Scramble assistant mixes 8, 10 or 12 words per puzzle at four levels, from 3 to 5 letters up to 8 to 12 letters, and it uses a large list of common words or your own.

Planning the page count

KDP requires at least 24 pages and rounds the count up to an even number if necessary. (source: KDP Help, Paperback Submission Guidelines) With black ink on white paper, a 6 x 9 inch paperback can have 24 to 828 pages and an 8.5 x 11 inch paperback 24 to 590 pages. (source: KDP Help, Set Trim Size, Bleed, and Margins) Your LogikLand plan also sets a maximum number of pages per book. In the app, the fallback limits are 50 pages for the free plan, 100 for PRO and 200 for EXPERT; the live values are shown in the assistant and on the pricing page.

Each assistant shows an estimate while you choose. These are its formulas at the default layout (title page, "how to play" guide in 8.5 x 11 inch, 1 puzzle per page):

Notice what the table tells you. A crossword puzzle costs two pages (grid and solution) and a word scramble about one and a third, because three scramble solutions share a page. The same 50-page book therefore holds 23 crosswords but 34 scrambles. If you want a larger book, mix types or choose a plan with a higher limit.

What a page looks like

Here is a hard-level scramble made with the generator: six words of 6 to 7 letters, no letter given. The answer lines are on the right, one per letter.

KDP checks that matter for word puzzles

• Lines need a minimum thickness of 0.75 point, and for gray backgrounds Amazon recommends a minimum fill of 10 percent. (source: KDP Help, Paperback Submission Guidelines) A word search has a grid border and a crossword has many thin lines: look at both at 100 percent in the PDF.
• Fonts must be embedded and images should be at least 300 DPI. (source: KDP Help, Paperback Submission Guidelines)
• Margins: the top, bottom and outside margins must be at least 0.25 inch without bleed, and the inside margin grows from 0.375 inch up to 150 pages to 0.5 inch from 151 to 300 pages. (source: KDP Help, Set Trim Size, Bleed, and Margins) Check that a tall word search grid, or a long clue list, stays inside them.
• Spine text on the cover needs at least 79 pages. (source: KDP Help, Create a Paperback Cover)

From assistant to finished file

The assistant creates the whole book and opens it in the editor, where you can change any text, add page numbers, a table of contents and a thank-you page, and download a PDF or an editable PPTX. The editor warns you when a page has too little room at the bottom for a page number. Always put the solutions in the book, after the puzzles, and read three of them against their puzzles.

Low-content, ISBN and the title

Amazon says activity books such as puzzle books "generally do not feature repetitive content on each page" and lists puzzle books as "Not Generally Low-Content", with possible exceptions. (source: KDP Help, Low-Content Books) A regular paperback needs an ISBN, either a free one from KDP or your own. (source: KDP Help, Get an ISBN) The title field must contain only the real title, and Amazon's examples of what is prohibited include references to sales rank such as "bestselling". (source: KDP Help, Metadata Guidelines for Books) We have not verified how Amazon will classify a specific book, so ask KDP support if you are unsure.

Free tools and commercial rights

The free word search maker makes one puzzle with up to 20 words, and its PDFs are for personal use. To sell a book you need commercial rights, which come with the PRO and EXPERT plans on the pricing page. This article makes no promise about sales. To start, create a free account and open the Word Search assistant; the word search book generator page lists what a full book contains. For the basics of one grid see how to make a word search puzzle, and for another idea how to make a cryptogram book for KDP.

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