So, I said on my confused 'What do I do now?' Thread that I'd post on the relevant thread when I had closure on my lame decision making process.
I had an offer from Zharmae on my Abendau trilogy, which was really encouraging as I had only started subbing to small presses - and was targeting those who offered an advance, as I believed at the time Zharmae did - after deciding the agent route wasn't paying off for the trilogy. To complicate this, I have a second novel doing well with agents, so I had a confused mish-mash of agents, publishers and books. Plus a certain big unagented submission window that I haven't been kicked out of (yet) so my hands were tied in terms of decisions until I unravelled some of those strands.
Ultimately I refused the offer. I have had another offer from a start up press which has offered an advance and is letting me be very closely involved in the design, approach, everything, so that was part of the reason I made the decision, but the key deciding factors for me were the contract terms around costs deduction before royalties, and the number of debut authors signed up at once.
I found Zharmae pleasant to deal with. The contract terms I first voiced concerns over were easily negotiated, and the marketing plan seemed sound (although the twitter approach of seeking sign ups for cover reveals didn't work for me, I really just want to see the cover and retweet if it's lush, without giving up my details, but that might be old fashioned of me). There was no pressure on me to make a decision, all emails were informative, friendly and relevant.
I hope I am wrong to fear that the contract terms will leave authors working very hard for their money, and I wish everyone signed all the very best, and hope to be proved wrong.