Later this year we will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Chihuahua website. But right now, another significant milestone is upon us: the 5th anniversary of the Chihuahua puzzle books.
My original motive in producing a book of 9-letter word puzzles that people could buy online was that I thought it would be an interesting and fun thing for me to do. And it was.
Over the first few months sales were quite modest, and my inclination was not to repeat the experiment. But a couple of readers had written that they were looking forward to volume 2, so I decided to put out another volume. One thing led to another and now there have been 16 different books. Sales have increased to the point where around 500 to 600 copies are sold each year.
Having worked out the process of creating the first book, the easiest thing for me would be to just churn out further titles in exactly the same format. But this would get boring, so I keep experimenting with new concepts. These are the different types of Chihuahua book that have come out so far.
Nine-Letter Word Puzzles: 
Each book has 100 9-letter puzzles. The puzzles are similar to the daily puzzles on this website, but to avoid confusion, all plurals are permitted. I've also arranged things so that the solutions don't include any swear words or epithets that might cause offence to some people. Now up to volume 7, this is by far the most popular series.
Chihuahua Express: 
Nine-letter puzzles with fewer words to find. Since less space is needed for the player to write in their words, more puzzles can be included in each volume. The first Chihuahua Express book had 150 puzzles, and later volumes have had 200 puzzles each. So far there have been three volumes.
Puzzle Diary: 
This was a 2012 appointment diary, with a nine- or ten- letter puzzle for each week. This was not popular at all, and has not been repeated. However it was the first book containing ten-letter puzzles, and paved the way for the next series.
Ten-Letter Word Puzzles: 
These have not proven as popular as some of the other series, but there has been enough interest to induce me to put out two volumes so far.
Chihuahua Classic: 
This series allows players to compare their performance with the people who played the same puzzle on the website. For each puzzle there is a chart showing the distribution of online scores, and the word targets are expressed in terms of percentiles of players. To ensure comparability with the online puzzles, the rules about which plurals are allowed are the same as on the website.
Chihuahua Compact: 
As in the Chihuahua Express books, each puzzle has a limited number of words to find (no more than 25 common words), but the book is physically smaller than the other books (page size 13 x 20 cm, or 5 x 8 in. and about 80 pages, with 100 puzzles, two to the page). I would have liked to make it a bit smaller, but then it wouldn't have been distributed by all the online booksellers. So far there has been only one volume, but a second one will be released soon.
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In 2010 when I started the Chihuahua puzzle books, there didn't seem to be any other books in print with this type of puzzle. Some books of "Target" puzzles had been published by newspapers, but that had been a few years earlier and the books were no longer readily available. Since then I've noticed a couple of other series of nine-letter puzzles listed on Amazon, both self-published though CreateSpace, like the Chihuahua books. I don't know whether the Chi books have inspired these other series, but in any case it's a sign that there's a fair bit of interest in such puzzle books out there, despite the fact that we all carry electronic devices around with us wherever we go these days.
As always, I'm interested in seeing any comments or suggestions players might have regarding the books.
