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I am a beginning author and have published two novels on Amazon/Kindle Ebook. THE FOXFIRE TERROR is a psychological thriller about a hiking trip for two young men along the Appalachian Trail that goes terribly awry. REMEMBER A DAY is the story of an old man, left alone with what he perceives as unrealized dreams after his wife dies. I am working on a collection of horror short stories at the current time. I enjoy writing but have been somewhat discouraged with the whole "marketing/promotion/business" aspect that follows publishing. I'm sure I am not the only one that has ever faced these struggles. I appreciate any advice or encouragement. Links to both books that are currently available, as well as information about myself, are on my website at: jdwilsonbooks.com

Have you thought about looking for an agent? The good ones do most of the promotional legwork. And they'll do it for a commission rather than charge you fees.

Duoptrope is a site that's devoted to placing people's writing. I think it's free for 30 days, then $50 per year. They have an agent section. I just looked, and at the moment it claims to have 1129 agents.

https://duotrope.com/

I haven't used the agent search, but the page is like the one I use for short stories. You just enter your parameters and it spits out a list.

Good luck.

Thanks for the advice. I will look into it. Not sure they (agent) could help with the first two books, since they are published through Amazon/Kindle, but possibly for the collection of short stories that I'm working on now, I might pursue this.

You might be able to get a publisher to pick up one of your novels. I've seen book publishers on Duotrope. You could search for them under the "Search for Publishers" tab, enter the length of the piece and "Reprints" in the parameters, and see what comes up.

I got a short story rejection from a magazine called All Due Respect today. I just looked, and I see that they also take longer pieces:

Novelette: 7500 to 15000 words
Novella: 15000 to 40000 words
Story Collection: No specific word count limits known
Novel: more than 40000 words

There's a question mark on the Reprints indicator, so I bet that they would accept a reprint if they really liked it. They'd probably want to make some editorial changes, and insist that the Amazon version be pulled, but I bet they'd take a reprint that's had limited exposure.

And there are probably a bunch of publishers like that on Duotrope.

Good luck.

Thanks so much. I will definitely look into this.
--Jim W.