The motivation, though, is the same as for bigger puzzles, Fagliano said. Limbering up your mind, you’re not stealing much of your time, or your employer’s. The short completion time fits the start of the workday. Answer - Sky.įagliano does follow a formula of sorts: “six or seven clues that are pretty easy, two that are trivia and two that are a bit more cryptic.” Example: Clue - What’s up? (three letters). Answer: Illgo.Ī few clues venture into the cryptic - single-word puzzles within the bigger puzzle - a format especially popular in the United Kingdom. Example from Tuesday: Clue - Volunteer’s offer. He learned sometime back that a key to writing puzzles successfully is “to understand your audience, create for them rather than what you would want to solve” or what puzzle-writing peers would admire.įive letters max is a bit constricting (except on Saturdays, when the grid expands to seven by seven) but Fagliano makes the most of it, sprinkling in abbreviations, slang and compound answers. Open women’s tennis champion Raducanu’s first name (Emma) days after her victory.Īnother principle, he said, is “don’t include any crossword-ese” - those arcane words that appear in crosswords but hardly ever in real life. “We can be much more reactive to the news.” For instance, there was a clue a month ago asking the U.S. In essence, he has never had another job.įagliano was happy to explain in an interview what he tries to build into The Mini. He sold his first puzzle to the Times at age 17 and became an intern, then assistant, to Times crossword guru Will Shortz. A prodigy, Fagliano first tried adult crosswords on the plane on a trip to Israel. He doubles as one of the editors of the bigger puzzle.
The Mini has had a single author since its launch, Joel Fagliano, not yet 30. No trade secret - it is meant to be a free, habit-forming gateway to the big daily Crossword for which there is a charge. The Mini has been a small cornerstone of the Times’ Crossword app since both launched in August 2014. Those puzzles don’t write themselves, but neither do they require the worldwide staff of 1,750 journalists dedicated to preparing the Times news report. I assume Games is highly profitable, too. Along with the Times’ newer Cooking vertical, it accounted for about 40% of the paid digital subscriber growth the company reported during the second quarter.Īt $40 per year, or a bit higher rate monthly, that would yield annual subscription revenue of roughly $40 million. With expansion plans in the works, the 1 million mark is in sight. Paid digital subscriptions to Games stand at 930,000.
However, it is one of the big stars of the company’s popular and lucrative Games division. That sounds like an amusing but tiny thing in the vast expanse of New York Times content. It’s free, it’s easy to work - but not ridiculously easy - a morning brain starter that can usually be solved in under two minutes. The Mini, a compact five-by-five daily crossword, as the diminutive name suggests, is built to be addictive.
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