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I guess I'm in the self-editor camp. It helps that my degree is in English Lit and I work professionally as a writer/editor, but my general thought is this:
If you want to call yourself a professional anything, you should be able to do the whole job yourself. A lawyer should be able to write a whole contract, a barber should be able to cut all your hair, and a writer should be able to write a finished (polished) book.
If you need a story-editor, then you aren't a solid story-teller. If you need a lot of proofreading, then you're not a very good user of the English language. So, if you're a poor story-teller with a weak command of English, then you're just not a good writer. Period.
Fortunately, education and practice can fix both of those problems.
I do use beta readers to give me general feedback, but I'm not looking for professional guidance from them, just some intelligent opinions to let me know where I was most successful and where I have room for improvement. After all, I'm only human and I want to keep improving.
My writer friends who pay editors have not had much success with them. Anyone can charge you for "editing services" and your edited book may still be full of problems, large and small.
*I should point out that lots of books that sell well (traditionally published and self-published) are poorly edited. It's not a complete barrier to success, only a big stumbling block.
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