In September, Monica Ray, VP of consumer marketing for Condé Nast, spoke in Des Moines at the annual summit that CDS, one of the major magazine fulfillment companies, hosts for its clients. 

Ray was the force behind Condé Nast’s groundbreaking deal with Amazon. No one should be surprised. In 2011, she told Wired, “We believe strongly in Amazon’s buy-once, read everywhere model, too,” when Condé Nast at the time partnered with Amazon’s newsstand on the Kindle Touch. 

Ray and Amazon are right. Consumers want a simple model, they want freedom to read anytime, anywhere, in part because of the culture that Amazon (and its spin-off, AmazonPrime) has created. It’s the reason that Amazon has thrived, and it was smart for Condé Nast to hop on board.

But at what cost to smaller publishers?

As touchy-feely as Amazon’s Jeff Bezos pretends to be, he’s a down-and-dirty businessman. He’s notorious for being cutthroat, and good for him—clearly it’s working. But it means that the stringent Amazon policies, the bullying contract, that deep cut of publishers’ profits, make it difficult for small publishers to exist, let alone thrive, in Amazon’s marketplace.

30 Percent Still a Tough Pill to Swallow

It is my opinion that Amazon’s typical “fee” of 30 percent created a norm where there’s no more room for publishers to budge in other markets—indeed, 70 percent net has become an accepted standard. This may not be bad for larger companies, which may pay out even more for new business acquisition, but it does pack a punch to us smaller ones, especially when we don’t get to own the customer relationship. Amazon’s longstanding argument is that a magazine subscriber who comes in via Amazon is an Amazon customer, not the magazine’s customer, and as such, Amazon retains the right to the relationship.

But that doesn’t mean we won’t exist in Amazon, and it doesn’t mean we won’t try to thrive. I’m not interested in a world where Amazon is all there is. But if Amazon is giving consumers something that no one else can, or no one else can at this scale, then we should comply on some level.

Let’s face it: Bezos has created a culture around online buying that is unparalleled to any other, to a devastating effect on the little guys: where there were 4,000 independent bookstores twenty years ago, there are now only 1,900.

In Des Moines, Ray described her vision of a checkless society (meaning physical checks). She wanted one-click marketing; Amazon was a natural partner. It was a smart move.

Ray seemingly cut the ultimate deal. Each of her titles’ sites offer subscription pages where a consumer can use Amazon to purchase either a print or print + digital bundled edition. This is not a Kindle sub; this is that same sub you’ve been buying for years online at a magazine’s website. It’s platform-agnostic. And because most people have Amazon accounts, it’s easier than managing a separate database of user names and passwords on different title’s content management systems.

But Ray developed her vision further, describing a world where you build a community within your brand, offer an action that’s pleasing to interact with, gain an experience with the brand as provided by the publisher, and stick with the brand in the long-term. It’s what we know as consumer marketers; it’s the whole basis of traditional circulation retention models. But what’s different is that now the level of intimacy with the brand is expected by a consumer in a way that requires that level of engagement by the publisher. It’s not time for us, small or large, to pull back from ways to reach our audiences; it’s time for us to push further. 

Katelyn Belyus is the audience development and digital marketing manager for The Nation Magazine.