I have a patent as well. If you go to an attorney they will get you to submit for the provisional up front. They described it to me a license to sell and have proof you were "first to market" for a full year. Depending on your income, you may be able to file as a micro entity and it's not expensive at all. Your attorney will research any and all patents that are similar. What you don't realize is all of the patents that have been filed that did not make it to the market. So there may be a similar product like yours that already hold a patent, but you aren't seeing it cause it's expensive to take to market. I started selling the prototypes at gun shows, word of mouth, and Facebook. Then, once I was convinced I had a market, I started reaching out to companies with product lines and eventually leased my patent for them to make their version of it through their manufacturers and let them do 100%. Now I just make a little bit of mailbox money quarterly. There is a lot that goes into the final non provisional patent that took me a long time to get so it won't happen overnight. Good luck.