To the question of cost of arrangements: Places like A-cappella.com have
probably paid an arranger a flat fee to get the rights to sell that
arrangement. So, as other people have noted, they sell in large quantities to
make their profit. I guess, but don't know, that these large companies still
pay the copyright holders of the SONG itself a per-copy fee, maybe half of
what they take in. If they have found a legal way around that, I'd sure
like to know about it. As other people have noted in this thread, it's a
matter of supply and demand. If the charts at A-cappella.com, work for you,
then by all means do business with them.

Individual arrangers have to get a written clearance contract from the
publisher or copyright holder, to even be able to write an arrangement.
Usually that chart has been ordered by a group, and then the arranger gets the
clearance and makes the arrangement.

When someone orders a "library" arrangement from an individual arranger
(one that's in the catalogue already), that customer pays a small arranger
fee, which does go to the arranger. The per-copy fees still go to the
copyright holder.

If a customer orders a custom arrangement, a lot of thought and work
usually goes into the finished product, and the arranger fee is higher, and the
original blanket fee and per-copy fees charged by the copyright holder must
be added to the cost. Most customers are OK with that fee.

In the case of RC-Music, Holly does all that work for a very small fee,
which is included in the cost that the customer pays.

Hope this helps.

Brian Beck