The most radical and transformative of inventions are often those that empower others to unleash their creativity — to pursue their dreams. That's a big part of what's going on with Amazon Web Services, Fulfillment by Amazon, and Kindle Direct Publishing.

These innovative, large-scale platforms are not zero-sum — they create win-win situations and create significant value for developers, entrepreneurs, customers, authors, and readers.

KDP authors get paid royalties of 70% while the largest traditional publishers pay 17.5% on ebooks. At a reader-friendly $2.99, authors get approximately $2 — with the legacy royalty, the selling price would have to be $11.43 to yield the same $2 per unit. Authors sell many, many more copies at $2.99 than they would at $11.43.

AWS is self-service: you don't need to negotiate a contract or engage with a salesperson — you can just read the online documentation and get started. All AWS services are pay-as-you-go and radically transform capital expense into a variable cost.

Take a look at the Kindle best-seller list, and compare it to the New York Times best-seller list — which is more diverse? The Kindle list is chock-full of books from small presses and self-published authors, while the New York Times list is dominated by successful and established authors.