Honestly I have one small press that I deal with that gives out ARCs for the books and I have not seen any spike in sales because they do this. Nor do I find heavy promotion a bonus for a book. I haven't released a book from Evernight in over a year and not because I don't want to but I'm going back to college. I don't find my experience with them lacking, honestly. Edits comes when they come. I have friends with other companies that give timelines then don't stick to them or ask the author to completely change a plot point that throws the whole story off. I've worked with several different editors and I like that because I know the person doing the editing with me knows the sub genre.
I have to ask those who have other publishers--what is the percentage of royalties you get from those companies? If you can do it on your own, why did you seek (or continue to seek) a publisher?
In my case, it's fairly simple. I started out with JMS Books LLC. Within the last 14 days of Q4 2016, sales from the publisher's website alone is ?? copies. However, I was a newbie. My first book was published on December 17, 2016. I didn't know any better and I felt that the number of copies sold as a first-time author was extremely horrible and disappointing. I received my royalty on January 4, 2017, if I remember correctly.
Regardless of the number of copies sold, I had already submitted one other manuscript to Siren Publishing and another manuscript to Evernight Publishing around 12, 13 December 2016, trying to diversify.
Siren sent me my first royalty on January 30 or 31, 2017. My first book with them (pre-order) was available on December 30, 2016 and officially published on January 18, 2017. But the first book with Siren has two days of royalty (12/30 to 12/31 2016) for Q4 2016 from the publisher's website alone and it sold ?? copies in two days - almost the same number of copies sold in 14 days at JMS Books LLC.
Still, I wanted to diversify because I heard/read so many horror stories about publishers closing up suddenly. I wanted to make sure that I had more than one basket, so to speak. LOL!
To sum up some of my reasons in point form:
1. I have no experience in publishing anything, aside from selling one short story to an anthology for a flat fee back in August 2016.
2. English is not my first language. I had no idea how to acquire an editor, a cover artist, etc. I literally published my first book with zero experience. I did my research and found so many conflicting information about publishers vs. self-published. I wanted to play it safe and go the route of a publisher.
3. I don't know how to market my book at all. Not that I'm fantastic at it now. LOL!
I hope the information above is useful. You can check the percentage through the publishers' website. I can't remember them at the moment, but I know that all three of my publishers have about the same figure, somewhere around 40-45%. Maybe someday I will self-publish. At the moment, I'm trying to bulk up my reader base. Honestly, Siren has given me the greatest number of readers, followed by JMS, and then Evernight. =)