Someone has to write it.
Someone has to sell it.

Publishing generally covers the initial creative process thru the demo stage of a song’s life. From that point on the publishing job has two parts: First and foremost there is an ongoing effort to generate revenues by placing the song with artists, record companies, radio, TV, movies, theater, digital downloads, ring tones, etc… Then the publisher can become a channel that receives royalties from numerous sources and distributes half of the royalties to the songwriter. There must be a contractual series of checks and balances that will ensure that the numbers are correct throughout this complex equation.