I'm finishing a fairly advanced iPad game and was wondering what experience independent developers have had working with publishers? If so, is it something you'd recommend?
If you have absolute no idea or time for doing the necessary marketing then a publisher can help you with these tasks. But a publisher does NOT have any magical forces. First of all your game has to stand on its own. Polish, polish. polish. Then ask your beta tester (at least 10) about their honest (!) feedback - do about 75% and more of them loving your game? Then go on without a publisher! If not then you have two options: go the publisher route as he may help to sell some more copies of an "ok" game or spent more time with polishing and revising your game. Do you have a thread in the "upcoming games" section here on TA? The feedback you will get there helps a lot. I'm sure a perfect game CAN (not will) sell with or without a publisher. But you need luck, no matter how good your game is. A publisher may decrease this "luck factor" because of his well known brand. Just my experiences...
If you sign a contract with a good publisher, you also have to sign an NDA (non disclosure agreement), therefore you are not allowed to tell much about it at all....