As part of New Music Box’s series on new-music economics, Vivien Schweitzer does a good job of succinctly summing up the advantages of having a publisher for your music versus not having a publisher. Namely, a publisher will market out your music to specific conductors and administrators who otherwise wouldn’t see it, but orchestras (and this I didn’t realize, but it makes sense) prefer to play music by self-published composers because the score and parts cost so much less. I will add that, as a critic, author, and program annotator, I always find it much easier when I can get a score from the composer. If I have to go through a publisher, the employees there are always as helpful as they can be, but the process is glacially slow, one often has to navigate endless and confusing web sites, and sometimes scores are for rental only and I can’t get what I want. If I had a choice between writing a profile about a self-published composer and one with a publisher, all else being equal, I’d take the self-published composer every time. It’s so much more convenient. I’d long ago decided that the sole function of publishers was to prevent music from being disseminated, and I’m surprised to learn from Ms. Schweitzer’s article that they play any positive role at all.