Publishers do provide editorial service. If an author writes a book in a year, there're more than 2 years of editorial process before the initial writing becomes a consumable.
Books aren't like software where you can release often and iterate. Think about your weekend prototype project. And how much effort it takes to make it into a "successful" start up. For books, you put all the effort before printing. And that effort to turn a prototype into a profitable product is what publishers provide you. And many publishers are really good at that.
Of course with ebooks and tablet, you can start thinking of a book as software: an interactive multimedia thingy that can be updated often. You are welcome to innovate this digital medium. But we are not there yet.
Books aren't like software where you can release often and iterate. Think about your weekend prototype project. And how much effort it takes to make it into a "successful" start up. For books, you put all the effort before printing. And that effort to turn a prototype into a profitable product is what publishers provide you. And many publishers are really good at that.
Of course with ebooks and tablet, you can start thinking of a book as software: an interactive multimedia thingy that can be updated often. You are welcome to innovate this digital medium. But we are not there yet.