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Any author can and should self-edit to the best of their ability.
There are always things the author can do to improve their work, and every writer should do that. The difference between a commercially published book and many indie books is that for the commercial book that's usually the first step in the editing process, and for indie books it's often the last (and some indie authors may not do that much.)
I know I'm not saying that authors cannot do any editing on their own work; what I am saying is that it is very and often prohibitively difficult for most authors to do all the developmental editing a novel needs on their own, and almost impossible to proofread one's own work successfully.
One area where I often see issues come up is that an author may explain or indicate something in a very oblique or subtle way. Because they know the story, they immediately catch up on the clue and follow along, but a reader coming in cold may not pick up on that and thus get lost in the story. One of the things editors do is point out those things which authors miss by being too close to the story.
As for the need for additional eyes to proofread, that should be self-evident.
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