A studio service
Word search books, built grid by grid.
A word search book is not a word list in a box. It is a themed set of puzzles that hold their difficulty, print legibly at the size the reader actually needs, and never accidentally spell something that gets the book pulled. We build the whole thing — themes, grids, solutions, cover and print files.
N° 01What goes in the book
Themed sets, not random word lists.
01
Themed puzzle sets
Each puzzle is built around a subject with its own vocabulary — a soda fountain, a drive-in, a garden in July. The theme is what makes a solver stay for eighty puzzles instead of ten.
02
Consistent grid difficulty
Difficulty comes from grid size, word count, and how many directions are in play. Held steady across a book, or ramped deliberately from front to back.
03
Large-print editions
The largest market for word search is readers who need bigger type. A large-print edition is a different grid, not the same grid enlarged — fewer words, bigger cells, more white space.
04
Full solution keys
Every puzzle gets a matching answer grid, laid out so a reader can find the right one without hunting.
05
Cover and interior
Cover design, title typography, front matter and print-ready interior files, sized to the trim you are publishing at.
06
A cover grid that is really from the book
The puzzle shown on the cover is an actual puzzle from inside, with its actual answers circled from the solution data. Most covers on this shelf use a stock or invented grid — which means the cover is showing a puzzle the buyer will never find. Ours cannot misrepresent the book, because it is the book.
07
Other languages
The grid logic is language-aware, so a Spanish or German set is built properly rather than translated word by word into an English grid.
N° 02The part that goes wrong
A grid can spell things nobody typed.
This is the failure mode that separates a word search book that ships from one that gets pulled, and almost nobody talks about it.
01
Filler letters are not neutral
Every cell not used by an answer is filled with a letter. Across a 15×15 grid that is a few hundred random letters, and random letters form words — including ones you would not print.
02
Backwards counts
Reading backwards is a legitimate direction in a word search, which means a perfectly innocent answer can spell something obscene in reverse. The grid has to be checked in every direction it can be read.
03
Over-filtering breaks the book
A naive blocklist kills real words: CRAPE PAPER is a genuine 1950s party decoration, SCRAPBOOK contains a slur fragment, SATURDAY contains another. A filter without exemptions makes an ordinary word list unusable.
04
Catch it at the word list
We learned this the expensive way: a word passed the authoring check, then no valid grid could be built for it at any random seed, and the fault only surfaced after forty attempts. The list gate and the grid gate now read the same lexicon, so a bad word is caught while the list is being written.
05
Trademarks too
Brand names are a different risk with the same shape — easy to include without thinking, expensive to have printed. They are screened at the same door.
N° 03How it runs
Themes first, grids after.
01
1. Theme set
We agree the subject, the audience and the number of puzzles, then write the themes. This is the part that decides whether the book is worth finishing.
02
2. Word lists
Each theme gets its list, screened for length, trademarks, and anything that traps in reverse — before a single grid is generated.
03
3. Grids and solutions
Grids are generated to the agreed size and difficulty, each checked in every readable direction, with its solution key produced alongside.
04
4. Layout and cover
Interior layout at your trim size, front matter, cover design, and print-ready files.
N° 04Peek inside
Five of them are ours.
The Decades Word Search — 1950s through 1980s plus the all-five compilation, live on Amazon as large-print paperbacks. Every cover shows a real grid from inside that book, with its real answers circled.
N° 05Investment
Three ways to work together.
Single volume
From $700
One themed word search book, the usual starting point for a new series.
- Up to 60 themed puzzles
- Word lists written and screened
- Full solution keys
- Cover design + title typography
- Print-ready interior PDF
- 1 round of revisions
Large-print pair
From $1,200
The same book in a standard and a large-print edition — the format that reaches the biggest part of this market.
- Up to 60 puzzles, both editions
- Large-print grids rebuilt, not enlarged
- Both solution key sets
- Two covers, one design system
- Both print-ready interiors
- 2 rounds of revisions
Series
From $2,800
A themed range sharing a cover system — decades, regions, seasons, or a subject broken into volumes.
- 3+ titles
- Shared cover system and typography
- Consistent difficulty across the range
- Full print files per title
- Series style guide
- Cross-title marketing assets
N° 06Questions
The answers we give most often.
- How many puzzles should a word search book have?
- Most commercial word search books run 60 to 100 puzzles. Below about 40 the book feels thin next to what else is on the shelf; past 100 you are mainly adding print cost. Sixty to eighty is the range most series settle into.
- What grid size do you use?
- 15×15 is the standard for a general-audience book and holds around 20 words comfortably. Larger grids up to 19×19 suit harder sets. Large-print editions go the other way — a bigger cell, fewer words, and usually a shorter list per puzzle.
- Is large print really a separate edition?
- Yes, and it is the single most common mistake in this category. Scaling a 15×15 grid up does not make it a large-print puzzle — it makes a normal puzzle on a bigger page, with the same cramped letter spacing. A large-print edition is rebuilt with fewer words and a larger cell so the grid stays legible at the size that matters.
- Can you do a themed series?
- That is usually the right shape for this market. Decades, regions, hobbies, seasons — a reader who finishes one volume of a series they like will buy the next one, which is much harder to achieve with unrelated standalone books.
- Do you handle other languages?
- Yes. The grid logic is language-aware rather than assuming English letter frequencies and word forms, so a Spanish or German set is built as its own puzzle rather than translated into an English-shaped grid.
- Do I own the puzzles?
- Yes — the themes, word lists, grids, solutions and files are yours in perpetuity, for any edition and any territory. We keep the right to show the work in our portfolio.
Start your book
Have a word search book in mind?
Tell us the theme, the audience and how many puzzles. We'll come back with a structure, a grid size and a fixed quote.