It was bound to happen. Amazon.com has announced that since April 1, 2011, it has sold 105 Kindle ebooks for every 100 physical books sold on the site.

This is great news — for a couple of reasons.

To my mind, ebooks are superior to printed books in every way, so I’m happy to see them succeed. This means they’ll continue to evolve, as will the devices we read them on. How are ebooks superior? You can download them immediately upon purchase. Your can take your entire library with you in a small, light device. And reading them is a pleasure, with built-in conveniences like varied font sizes and a dictionary that works automatically with any highlighted word.

My excitement as a reader, however, is nearly surpassed by my excitement as a writer. Kindle books, and those of other platforms, are a godsend for authors of all sorts. There are writers today who have built huge audiences for their books strictly on ebook platforms. Amanda Hocking and John Locke come to mind.

No longer are writers required to play the agent/publishing house game. They can if they want. But it’s not a requirement. This is the free market at its best. Writers can simply upload and readers can download, with no middlemen, or gatekeepers, in the mix.

Clearly, we’ll see a whole new generations of writers emerge based on the freedom and power of this platform. They’ll do thrilling new things and old things in entirely new ways.

Perhaps I’ll even be uploading something myself in the not too distant future…