I've read so many different numbers on how much a game makes. Can anyone give some life experiences on publishing and making profit?

What you've heard basically describes reality; there is a huge amount of variance between the profits of various independent developers. I don’t know really what works and what doesn't yet because I don't have any experience selling the game I’m working on. In my experience talking to various indie developers though, it seems the most successful indie developers are catering to the mass market with solitaire style games or games which offer a similar experience to solitaire like puzzle games. After that there are a few successful indie RPG/Action game developers. However they arn't nearly as many of them as there were 8-10 years ago when epic, apogee, and ID were in their prime.

The indie/hobbiest developers have been increasing rapidly in the past few years as is indicated by the increasing number of introductory books being published on the topic as well as the various Indie Game Conferences and competitions popping up everywhere. This is a good thing. However a lot of these budding developers just don't "get it". The have a hard time looking at the marketing implications of game design and implementation choices. This is why there's such a variance in the market. Some developers make games they know they can sell and market, other make game they think would be cool and don't even think about selling it until after their done. Often by that time its tool late to really market the thing effectively without a lot of rework.