But hey, you could probably hire someone to work for your own publishing company and try to collect these monies. It's entirely possible that this might work for you. If you don't want to deal with the hassle, however, maybe you should think about a publishing deal. Beware, however, of independent music publishers or, rather, people who hold themselves out as music publishers. Anyone can own songs and call themself a publisher.
Real publishers make money for their clients.
Crooks get ownership rights to the songs, then try to ransom them off to a real publisher later. This happens a lot with independent record labels. And I use the term record labels lightly. Now the artist is stuck in more ways than one. If the artist gets the attention of a real record company, that real record company now has to buy out the independent record company, when the independent record company probably did absolutely nothing for the artist.