The growing importance of digital content isn’t a surprise to anyone, by now, but that trend is shaking up the publishing world in more ways than one. It’s challenging the traditional partnership between publishers and retailers, according to one observer.

Looking ahead, industry veteran Jim Milliott says that “distinctions between publishers and booksellers will become even more blurred as publishers become more involved in bookselling and booksellers become more involved with publishing.”

The director of business and news for Publishers Weekly sees the shift in an article looking ahead to next year’s 60th Frankfurt Book Fair (interestingly, marking the same 2009 anniversary as CBA’s summer show).    

One of six contributors looking forward to how publishing will have changed by 2012, Milliott predicts that not only will publishers be offering materials in “smaller slices” by then—such as per chapter—but they will increasingly be selling from their known Web sites. These will be “an important revenue stream and will compete with online retailers and bricks-and-mortar bookstores.”

Titled bluntly, “The Coming Battle Between Publishers and Booksellers,” his full report can be found at http://www.buchmesse.de/en/anniversary/contemporary_witness/00706/index.html.

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