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The Business of Composing, Part 1 - Commissions & Publishing





          engines, Facebook groups, and YouTube videos have   help you spend less time on the business aspect and
          enabled conductors to find music much more easily   more time on your compositional craft. Remember:
          and broadly. However, retailers with a broad and well-  your art is of great value and should be treated that
          organized selection of repertoire can be a vital asset   way. When all composers are paid appropriately for
          for conductors. They provide a “one-stop shop” with   their work, it benefits everyone involved: composers,
          all  represented  publishers, which some conductors   conductors, performers, and audiences alike.
          may find more efficient than browsing and purchasing
          from multiple sources. Also, some schools have vendor
          accounts set up with specific companies and so they                      NOTES
          can only purchase music from those companies (with-
          out the need to create a new vendor account, which   1  Matt Parish. Choral Director website, “Dale Warland,” Jan-
          can be an arduous process). On the other hand, some     uary 21, 2013.
          customers prefer to shop directly with the publishers,   2  Abbie Betinis, email message to author, August 22, 2022.
          which in some cases can provide faster delivery, and/  3  https://newmusicusa.org/nmbx/commissioning-fees-
          or may provide more financial support to the compos-    calculator/
          ers and editors who are creating the music.         4  U.S. Copyright Office website, “Copyright in General,” ac-
            There are both large and small retailers for choral   cessed August 18, 2022.
          music. Larger retailers offer a wider variety of scores,   5   “ACDA  Financial  Policies  and  Procedures  for  State,
          but smaller retailers can provide more of a personal-   Region,  and  National  Officers.”  https://acda.org/
          ized experience on a local scale. Many of these retail-  about-us/leadership-tools. Accessed August 26, 2022.
          ers  advertise  scores at regional  and national  confer-  6  All information regarding royalties was established via the
          ences while maintaining email lists and other forms of   retailer’s website or direct email communication with
          advertising to their constituency on behalf of publish-  the company. Information is accurate as of November
          ers.                                                    11, 2022. For example, Beckenhorst Press pays a 30%
                                                                  royalty to composers on sales of digital products.



                            Conclusion
            With so many publishing options, it can seem over-
          whelming to choose the  right  path for one’s music.
          Our best advice is  to have conversations  with other
          composers to see what  has  worked for them, assess
          your  own  comfort  level  with  all  of  the  benefits  and
          drawbacks involved in the various methods, and put
          your music out there to see what “sticks.”
            There are many  details  we weren’t able to cover
          here, such as keeping business accounts separate from
          personal accounts (and  the  usefulness of simple  ac-
          counting software), when it makes sense to incorporate
          versus staying self-employed (at a certain income level,
          corporate taxes and expenses will cost you less than
          self-employment taxes!), when it’s time to hire a CPA,
          and much more. We can’t offer professional tax advice,
          but we recommend talking to someone who can!
            Our hope is that by sharing this information, it can


          32      CHORAL JOURNAL  March/April 2023                                              Volume 63  Number 7
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