Is $200 enough for a daily NYT puzzle?

[mcdermott2]

I just read that the NYT will be charging home delivery subscribers an extra fee to access crosswords online. This got me to thinking about how small the $200 pay for daily puzzles is.

How much do you think daily puzzles should be worth? Would an increase in pay = better puzzles?

[worldofcrosswords]

Seems to me that if they can get enough submissions with the $200 payment, then they're paying enough (what the market will bear). I do wonder if they keep the pay relatively low to avoid an excessive number of submissions.

Of course, I would love it if they would increase the pay... it would be nice to make a living building crossword puzzles! But would that produce better puzzles? I don't know - define what would make a puzzle "better." Do you find the current quality of NY Times crosswords to be lacking something?

Marya

[mcdermott2]

I think the NYT does a great job and has very high quality puzzles. When I say better, I guess I am thinking that if Mr. Shortz received 300 puzzles a week instead of 75-100 he could be even more selective.

[worldofcrosswords]

I also think that the NY Times puzzles are very high quality.

You may be right that higher payments would result in even higher quality puzzles. There might be a lot of talented people out there who could create some great puzzles, but who aren't even interested in trying because the compensation is too low.

At first glance, it does seem like high quality puzzles are connected to compensation. I think the NY Times pays the most, and they have the best puzzles (IMHO). But that might also be due to the fact that they have a very good editor, plus it's prestigious to be published in the Times. So it attracts some very talented people without having to pay very much.

Marya