Puzzle book series without duplicate content

Once a puzzle book sells, the natural next step is Volume 2. A series is great for readers who finished the first book and want more. It's also where a lot of publishers get into trouble.

The problem with near-duplicates

Amazon doesn't want the same content sold again under a new title. Books that are mostly copies of each other can be blocked or removed. Readers are less forgiving still: someone who buys Volume 3 and recognizes puzzles from Volume 1 leaves a review that says so.

With puzzle books it's easy to repeat yourself by accident. You copy last month's file to save time, change the title, and forget that the puzzles came along too.

What counts as the same puzzle

For Sudoku, swapping every 3 for a 7 doesn't make a new puzzle. The pattern is identical and a solver would recognize it. The same is true for word searches with the same grid, or mazes with the same walls.

So a proper check compares the puzzle itself, not just the file name or the page it's on.

Planning a series that stays fresh

• Generate new puzzles for every volume. Never copy a previous book's puzzle pages.
• Keep the format, change the content. Readers like a consistent trim size, layout and cover style across a series. That's good branding, not duplication.
• Vary the mix. Volume 2 could add a section of a second puzzle type, or follow a different theme for word searches.
• Check before you upload. Compare every puzzle in the new book against the earlier volumes.

How Puzzlil handles it

Put your books in a series and every export is checked against the other exported volumes. Each puzzle gets a fingerprint (with Sudoku digits relabelled, so recolored copies still count). If anything repeats, the export stops and offers to give the book fresh puzzles. When it's clean, the series page shows it, for example "0 repeats with Vol. 1 and Vol. 2", and the quality report you get with each export says the same.

You can also make several new volumes at once from an existing book. Each one keeps the setup and gets brand new puzzles.