AVONTWOBUY - CHOREKNACK

John Grossman, in Sky magazine, writes:

...53-year-old Merl Reagle has successfully solved the big puzzle. He's one of a handful of constructors able to make a living solely by creating crosswords. No small challenge, considering that the prestigious New York Times pays $100 for a daily crossword and $350 for a Sunday grid.

Reagle has successfully branded his distinctive puzzles by self-syndicating them. In addition to The San Francisco Chronicle, Reagle's puzzles also appear in The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Hartford Courant—12 papers in all. Some years back, he clued readers to pencil in the bunched words AVONTWOBUY and CHOREKNACK. In the middle of the grid he clued for DRACULA. (Say aloud the first two word combinations with a thick Transylvanian accent and you'll begin to appreciate Reagle's ransacking of the English language.) He makes the bulk of his money, a handsome six-figure income, by leveraging his name and retaining the rights to his puzzles, which he resells in book form under his own imprint, PuzzleWorks.

And he doesn't use computer assistance!