...what will propel culture without true Literature?
True literature doesn't necessarily depend on good/professional editing - but , in my opinion, producing a good read does need a reasonably literate editor. Even the best of authors rarely picks up all his (or her) own errors, however many times he or she reads it through, and it grates on the nerves of a reader to keep coming across twisted grammar and structure.
Self-publishing is OK if you have a good editor to check the book first - although, unfortunately, many of those who charge large amounts of money to edit an author's work really don't do a very good job of it. Some of the smaller publishers, many of which specialise in ebooks, are a little better, but some errors are still missed. It's a matter of economics; as most ebooks (and print-on-demand books) don't sell in large numbers, you can't expect the same degree of "perfect" text you'd expect from a "traditional" publishing house who can push large amounts of money and resources at something they are fairly certain will sell in large numbers. A small publisher can read and correct a book perhaps two or three times before publishing, and there will inevitably be the occasional error that is missed.
I don't think that's all bad. Without the self-publishing and the efforts of the very small publishers, there would be thousands of really great books that otherwise would never have been available. In most cases, the reader can pick up whether or not a serious effort has been made to edit it properly by looking at the cover, the blurb, and the extract that almost invariably appears with the book on retailers' web sites. And, to complicate it all, there are many, many authors who have great ideas, are often great storytellers, but whose command of language and ability to produce a really "good" book is seriously lacking. Someone mentioned "Frankenstein" earlier - and, as most literary critics will tell you, it's not a great work of literature. It is, however, one of the greatest, enduring themes that has ever been written, and what a loss to the world if a publisher had said, "Sorry, it's not a great piece of writing, so we won't publish it."
Many small publishers will edit and publish free of charge for any reasonably good piece of writing - simply taking a percentage of sales revenue. That's not a bad way to get published. At least you know that they'll make maximum effort to produce the best finished product they reasonably can, given a sensible balance of the amount of time spent against the likely sales revenue, but you also know that your final published book probably won't be perfect.
I've written just one short novel myself, and "anonymously" co-written thirty others of varying lengths. All were edited and published by a small publisher (which I have a direct financial interest in - so my views aren't entirely unbiased). The books sell small quantities regularly, but I'm not going pretend they're going to sell millions. I write because I enjoy it, which is more important. Any money I make is nice, but of secondary importance.
