Write a book. Keep in mind that even if you are self-publishing, the manuscript must be top-notch. Revise as many times as necessary to make the manuscript shine. Use the help of friends and family for reviews and proofing, but don't discount hiring a professional editor.
Create a professional-looking book description and cover. Your book will be sitting next to books from traditional booksellers. A well-crafted description and cover will look like it belongs. Successful writer/self-publisher Boyd Morrison, who sold his self-published book "The Ark" to Simon and Schuster, said, "...self-published authors should spend some time on a well-crafted book description and polished book cover art."
Sign in to Amazon's Digital Text Platform. If you already have an Amazon account, use the same account name and password. If not, sign up for an account.
Click the "add a new item" on top, left-hand side of the page to publish a book. The page opens to the dashboard where all the operations to upload the manuscript take place. You will enter details, confirm content rights, upload and preview the book, and enter a suggested retail price.
Enter the product details. In this section the self-publisher is required to add the title, language, categories and authors. You can also add an ISBN number, description, publisher, publication date, search keywords, edition number, series title, series volume and product image or cover page.
Confirm the content rights. As the writer of the book, you should own all rights, unless you've assigned them to someone else for other types of publications. As the owner of all rights, choose "Worldwide rights -- all territories." Then confirm you have all rights.
Convert to the proper format to upload your book. The Kindle supports Word (.doc), MobiPocket (.mobi and .prc) and HTML files. Many writers are successful by converting to a HTML file. It keeps the Microsoft Word formatting intact and looks good on the Kindle. If you have trouble with the conversion, you can use a service like Smashwords, but keep in mind you will be paying extra that that.
Enter the price of the book. As the writer/self-publishers, you get to set the price of the book, but take a look at other books in your category to get a feel for pricing. Remember, Kindle readers are expecting a price discount. The lowest price Amazon will allow self-publishers to charge is 99 cents.
Publish your book. Once you click "Publish," it generally takes Amazon 24 to 72 hours to process and upload to the Kindle store.
Promote and market your book. This is the additional work self-publishing writers must do to sell their books. Create a website, and visit and participate in forums where potential readers might be. And don't forget to use the Kindle and Amazon discussion forums. Offer your books to other websites for review. Free excerpts and sample chapters are another good marketing tool.