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In one way it's an exciting time and very interesting to see what will evolve. I too don't see authors doing everything themselves. Editing will in my view still be very valuable and necessary, and though one scenario is freelance editors, the reality would seem to be that this is a service which will probably be offered by "gatekeepers", like Amazon, offering those services which publishers now provide which remain desirable. Some of these "gatekeepers" will offer one very valuable service to all of us, that of quality control. With everyone able to produce a book easily and cheaply and make it available for download, we will likely be drowned in rubbish. Some "gatekeeper" sites may take all comers. For instance, it seems that Amazon's current KDP program does not reject books except on technical grounds. I think this quality control aspect will become increasingly important.
I believe that Amazon, barring catastrophe, have a big lead and will remain a major player. Some of the existing large publishers are still in with a chance, but as another poster pointed out, sometimes they can see the slow moving freight train coming, and want to get off the tracks, but don't know how. Lulu established themselves early with a good electronic variation of vanity publishing, and seem to be doing well, and may also be a chance. And of course perhaps the next startup none of us have yet heard of.
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