The same word-search grid can be a Teachers Pay Teachers worksheet, an Etsy printable, and a KDP interior. Those are three listings, not three filenames. The marketplace decides page count, what the preview has to show, what the license line can say, and how the price is even allowed to work.
The four-channel map is the product-form article (book, pack, worksheet, embed). This page is the listing article: TPT vs Etsy vs KDP, same asset.
This is not an upload walkthrough and not a generate lesson.
Same asset, three contracts
A puzzle asset is the solved page: grid, word list, answer key, the type already chosen. Standard Word Search is a typical shared generator. What changes is the contract with the buyer.
- KDP is selling a book. The shopper is buying a bound object with a trim, a page count, and a Look Inside.
- Etsy is selling a file. The shopper is buying an instant download they will print at home this afternoon.
- TPT is selling a classroom file. The shopper is buying one skill they can hand out tomorrow, plus a key they can trust.
Reuse the puzzle. Change the listing. If you upload the KDP PDF to Etsy and the Etsy ZIP to TPT, you have three weak listings of the same wrong product.
Page count
Page count is not a flex. It is the product.
On KDP, page count is a print-cost decision. A longer interior is not automatically a better book, because printing comes out of the same royalty. The file has to feel like a book: enough puzzles, a solutions section, a trim that matches the cover. Padding to look thick is a different product from a short, honest interior.
On Etsy, page count is pack size. Eight to twenty themed pages with matching answers is a typical printable shape. A 150-page KDP interior dumped into a “printable” listing is a book wearing the wrong shop. One theme per file beats a leftover dump.
On TPT, page count is usually one skill. A single worksheet plus a clean key often is the listing. Front matter, “this book belongs to,” and a mixed grab-bag make a paperback feel finished and a worksheet feel unfocused.
Puzzle Book Studio is the assembly step when the product is a book or a mixed collection. A one-page TPT file may never need it. Do not force every channel through the book PDF.
Preview
Each marketplace sells the first page it is allowed to show.
KDP’s Look Inside is the first interior pages. A nasty opener, a copyright brick, or a type size that dies in print loses the sale before the shopper reaches puzzle three. The first real puzzle has to match the cover (large print if you promised large print, easy if you promised easy).
Etsy’s preview is the thumbnail and the first listing photos. The first page has to read as the product in a small crop: a themed cover sheet and a real puzzle page, not a collage of icons. If the thumbnail says “kindness quotes,” page one is not a weather proverb. Cryptogram printables sit beside word search for this reason: the page looks like a quote, not a grid.
TPT’s preview is a classroom page. Teachers want to see the skill, the student page, and that a key exists. They do not need a how-to-play lesson on a word search. They are buying time. If the listing says vocabulary, the preview page is vocabulary.
License language
Commercial rights to sell the finished puzzles as books, printables, and digital products are part of the Puzzle Maker Pro license, as stated on the homepage. That is the rights story between you and the software. It is not a substitute for each marketplace’s own rules, and it is not a license you can paste onto the buyer.
What the listing can honestly say is different on each shop:
- KDP: the buyer owns a copy of a book. You are not selling classroom commercial rights or a file they may resell.
- Etsy: the buyer is usually paying for personal / home print. If you also offer a small-classroom or commercial-print add-on, that is a different SKU and a different sentence, not a buried line in a personal-use pack.
- TPT: the buyer is buying TPT’s own resource license, not a school or commercial license you attach to the listing. The default is an Individual License: one teacher, their own classroom. Extra colleagues need additional licenses (TPT’s multiple-license purchase). A school-wide or commercial-use right is not a product option you flip on. If you want to grant extra rights, write them as seller-authored terms in the listing, on top of TPT’s license — not as a license you attached.
Do not list the same pack six times with a new cover and no new puzzles. Do not paste “commercial rights included” on a buyer-facing PDF because your generator license said you may sell printables. Those are two different licenses.
Price logic
Price follows the product, not a shared “puzzle page” rate. Do not copy a KDP paperback price onto a five-page TPT file, or a TPT worksheet price onto a 120-page interior.
KDP price is squeezed by print cost and by what a puzzle paperback can bear. A thicker book that eats the royalty is not a better listing than a shorter one that still looks like a book in Look Inside. You cannot pretend the file is free to reproduce; Amazon prints it.
Etsy price is a file price. The buyer compares your pack to other instant downloads, not to a paperback. A short, themed pack with a clear page count can sit at a download price. A dumped book PDF has to compete as a book and usually loses to people who cut the file.
TPT price is a classroom-file price. Teachers pay for one usable skill, not for spine width. A clean single worksheet plus key is a different price logic from a 40-page “bundle” of leftover pages. If you later sell a bundle, it should be several real skills, not the same word list exported four ways.
Do not invent fee percentages here. Each shop takes a cut; the useful question is whether the file you uploaded can bear a price that still looks fair next to the other listings in that shop.
What to cut, what to keep
Keep: the word list, the difficulty, the answer key data, the fact the puzzle has one solution.
Cut or change per listing:
- Page count and trim
- Front matter and how-to-use-this-book pages (KDP yes; TPT/Etsy usually no)
- Cover-to-interior promises
- The first page the preview will show
- The license sentence the buyer actually receives
- The price that shop will allow
Playable extras exist on newest modules if you also run a site — a fourth product, already mapped, and not required for a TPT, Etsy, or KDP listing.
The whole point
TPT, Etsy, and KDP will take the same grid. They will not take the same listing. Cut the file for the shop: one skill and a key, a short themed pack, or an honest book. Then write the license and the price for that shop, not for the generator.