This. There's nothing wrong with writing for yourself, and only yourself. But, if you want readers, well, you have to somehow appeal to readers. They don't owe you anything.
Both approaches to writing are okay, but I think there's something wrong when an author says "oh, I'd like you to read this story, but I don't care about what you think".
Novels are clearly a medium for writing to an audience. Artists, esp amateur ones, think they can write for themselves and still create a novel. They should stick to their journals.