Quote:
Originally Posted by mr ploppy
That is the role of an editor. You don't need to sell your soul to a publisher to get access to an editor, you can hire them by the hour or by the job (book).
Everything else that a publisher does -- distribution, promotion (if you're lucky), etc, is irrelevant in the internet age. Both established and new writers can easily bypass them in order to reduce prices for consumers, and at the same time increase their own income from what they write.
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You're right that one doesn't need a publisher to get one's work edited, and as someone who makes part of his income as a freelance editor I'm very glad that's the case.
The point I was making is that while it's perfectly possible for a self-published author to hire an editor, it's not a requirement. There's no way for me as a reader to know beforehand whether a self-published book was edited or not. I've read the slush pile, I don't want to pay for the privilege of doing it again. A good self-published book can be as good as anything from any major or minor house out there - a bad self-published book can be as bad if not worse than the worst product of my daughter's second grade class.
That's a chance I'm not willing to take if I don't have to.
As for bypassing the book trade and the existing distribution chain, that works brilliantly IF the author already has a name and following. It does not work as well for authors who do not already have the benefit of that level of public awareness. There will always be counter-examples, but they're the exception, not the rule.
As of right now, the internet as a whole does not do as good a job of making sure that readers can expect a certain minimum level of writing competence in the books they buy as the publishing industry.