The Tall & Short of It

Beacon B102

Throughout the BookScans web site (and other vintage paperback sites), you will frequently hear collectors discuss "short format" and "tall format." Many publishers, such as Pocket Book and Dell, never really got away from the short format. Others, such as Gold Medal and Signet, always used the tall format. A few, such as Avon and Bantam, switched from short to tall somewhere during their runs. Only the first few Beacon books used the short format before the company (Universal Publishing) made the switch. Kenneth R. Johnson found this later printing of Beacon B102 in the tall format. They were able to keep the exact cover presentation simply by filling the extra space with additional copywriting at the bottom.

The tall-format scan is courtesy of Kenneth R. Johnson