I went through New York publishers for my first (Portfolio/Penguin) and second book (Workman Publishing).

A while back, Tim Ferriss and I did a video covering lots of stuff on writing/marketing/entrepreneurship.

Specific clip about self-publishing vs. a NY publisher: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffYVm5g6oSk

Full 88-minute video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JesBi91m39E