Harding paid singers to sing his published songs in shops and beer halls to get them known and attract customers.

[2] Composers such as Irving Berlin and George Gershwin later got their starts as pluggers.

[4][5] Another of his business practices was to charge performers to have their portrait printed on sheet music.

Then he gave them the sheet music to hand out as they wished, and made money from selling advertisements on the back cover page.

[5] In his book "They All Sang," Marks referred to Harding as "the Grandee of the popular music Game.