bantam

But Mr. Jaffe, editorial director of Bantam Books, the paperback publishing house in New York City, thought the idea sounded pretty good.

But the Bantam paperback edition, published a year later, was a blockbuster.

“Marc was the epitome of a great editor,” Alberto Vitale, the former chairman of Random House, who worked with Mr. Jaffe at Bantam for a time, said by phone.

Mr. Vitale recalled the success of “Jaws” in paperback, propelled in part by the book’s terrifying cover — showing an enormous, toothy shark ready to swallow an unsuspecting swimmer — which was commissioned by Oscar Dystel, Bantam’s president, and painted by Roger Kastel.

Mr. Jaffe worked hard to promote the book around the world, though there was a bit of pushback from Bantam’s subsidiaries in England and Australia.