How to Get Your First Crossword Published

You have a finished grid, a clue list you are proud of, and no idea where to send it. This is the point at which most first crosswords stop, which is a shame, because the submission process is far more approachable than the folklore suggests.

What follows is the practical version: where to send it, what to send, how long to wait and why it will probably come back the first time.

Pick the right market for a first grid

The instinct is to send it to the biggest paper you read. That is not wrong exactly, but it is a slow way to learn, because rejections from large outlets are usually a single line and tell you nothing.

A better first sequence looks like this:

• An independent puzzle newsletter or zine. Small readership, fast responses, real feedback, and often a modest payment. This is where you learn what an editor actually reads for.
• A regional or trade publication. Steady demand, lower competition, and the volume to take on a new constructor.
• A major daily. Once you have something published, and after you have read enough of their grids to know the house style.

The community maintains a current list of markets, rates and turnaround times at Cruciverb, which is more reliable than any list an article can hard-code. The New York Times submission guidelines are the reference document for the format everyone else is measured against, and worth reading even if you are not submitting there.

What to send

Every outlet has a preferred format and most of them will say so explicitly. In the absence of instructions, the safe package is: the grid as a PUZ or PDF, the clue list as plain text with numbers, and a two-sentence note explaining the theme.

Three things belong in that note and nothing else: what the theme is, why it holds together, and confirmation that you have test-solved it. Editors do not want to know how long it took or how much you enjoyed making it.

The cover note exists to save the editor ninety seconds. Any sentence that does not do that is working against you.

Realistic timelines

Response times vary enormously. Independent outlets often answer in one to three weeks. Large dailies routinely take three to six months, and acceptance-to-publication can add a year on top of that.

Two consequences follow. First, do not submit the same grid to two places at once unless the guidelines allow simultaneous submissions, which most do not. Second, do not wait for a response before starting the next puzzle. Constructors with a queue of four grids in circulation are much less bothered by any individual rejection.

The four rejections, in order of frequency

1. Rough fill. By a wide margin the most common. The theme was fine; the grid around it was not. This is a pricing problem more often than a skill problem.

2. The theme has been done. Usually recently, and usually by someone whose version was tighter. Checking is easy and almost nobody does it: search the theme concept in a grid database like XWord Info before you build.

3. The theme is not consistent. Three entries follow the rule and the fourth follows a slightly different rule. Editors notice this instantly and it is nearly always fatal.

4. Wrong for the venue. The grid is good and it is not this paper's puzzle. This is the best rejection to get, because it means send it somewhere else rather than build something better.

What acceptance looks like

Usually an email asking for changes. Editors rewrite clues routinely, and often ask for a corner to be refilled or a theme entry swapped. This is normal and not a soft rejection.

Payment varies from nothing to several hundred dollars depending on the outlet and the grid size. Contracts are typically for first publication rights, sometimes with a syndication clause. Read them; they are short.

The thing that actually predicts success

Not talent, and not a good first theme. Volume. Constructors who submit ten grids in a year get published far more often than constructors who spend that year perfecting one, and the gap is not close.

Part of that is arithmetic and part of it is that each submission teaches you something the previous one could not. Build a habit of solving daily while you are at it - a single feed of the major daily puzzles makes it painless, and reading a paper's own archive, whether that is the Wall Street Journal or the Times back catalogue, is the fastest way to learn a house style before you submit to it. For tooling and word lists, a curated resource directory will point you at most of what exists.

Send the grid. The worst outcome is a two-line email and a puzzle you can send somewhere else next week.