I’ve been riding the freelance roller coaster since 2011. I eased my way into this wild ride by first working a corporate job that demanded immense travel, which meant working from airports, hotels, and—sometimes—home. I then took a job as art director for a real estate content company that allowed me to work remotely full-time. Finally, I moved to a small, remote Hawaiian Island and took the full freelance plunge. I’ve recently moved back to the mainland and I’m working from home as an editing and writing (and occasional design) freelancer in Louisville, KY.

It has not been easy, but it has been a rewarding journey and I have learned so much about myself and about how to be a freelancer. The skills required to be a successful freelancer don’t usually pop up when you’re fantasizing about finally standing up to that awful boss, shouting “See ya later, suckers!” and proudly striding through the cubicle maze to freedom. I hate to ruin the dream, but if you really want to become a full-time freelancer, you need to put in the work.

With that in mind, I offer you the big lessons I’ve learned over the past four years as an independent contractor:

Keep your day job. I know this is not what you want to hear, but in order to support yourself as a freelancer you will need multiple clients. When you are freelance, work tends to be feast or famine. For example, just this past January I went from no work at all to three projects happening at exactly the same time for three different clients and with three different skill sets. You’ll need to manage your schedule and your money to survive the lean times. It has taken me four years to build a reliable stable of clients: some offer frequent work, some I hear from quarterly, and many (especially friend-of-friend referrals for things such as wedding invitations) are one-time deals. I heartily recommend you start building your client and referral network before you leave a reliable paycheck and health insurance.

It may rain Benjamins, but it won’t rain bennies. Harsh reality but true, my freelancing friends. (And, really, it rarely rains Benjamins, either.) You will need to organize your own:

• Health benefits: Good news there as this got a whole lot more affordable thanks to the Affordable Care Act. Thanks, Obama! (Seriously, pre-ACA, did you ever look at the premiums for COBRA self-insurance? Just take my first-born child, please! Who could afford that?)
• Retirement savings: You’ll need to investigate and invest in your own 401(k), IRA, or other savings plan. You’ll also probably want to start saving money more in general to address that whole feast/famine freelance thing.
• New tax obligations: You will owe Uncle Sam more money without an employer offsetting and managing your tax contributions—it’s called self-employment tax and it totally blows. I set aside between 35 and 45 percent of my income to pay taxes. Usually, I make quarterly payments in advance. Talk to an accountant, who will become your best friend and commiserate with you about how poorly 1099 workers are treated in the tax world, regardless of actual income.
• Vacation: OK, so this is actually the good news! As your own boss, you get to decide when to work and when to sneak away for a week with your girlfriends to sip bourbon on the beach. Two weeks of vacation a year? I don’t think so! More like two months! The tough part: Making enough money to afford to go on vacation. I rarely turn down work because of that whole feast/famine issue. My time off usually just means I get to spend more time painting, reading or exploring my city. It takes a special planetary alignment to have money and time off at the same time in this line of work, but it does happen and as I’ve stuck with the freelance path, it has gotten easier and more financially rewarding.

Networking will be your life. Saddle up, Sally – get ready to schmooze your way through cocktail parties, conferences, online groups and old Facebook friends. To build clients, you must promote yourself and charm people—offline and online. Just remember, I said, “charm,” not strong-arm or bore-to-death people you know tangentially. Your ability to engage potential clients is crucial. I belong to multiple writing and editing societies, forums, and groups. I pay dues, I wade through emails full of tips in search of ideas to apply to my own business, and I’m always looking for new clients via organizations, websites, and more. It’s part of the job when you are a freelancer: You need to build social networking and self-promotion into your workweek.

You’re the IT Guy. You want to be a writer (or editor or other) on your own terms. You want freedom from a patriarchal, dismissive corporate culture that feels toxic, unfair, and unappreciative. Maybe you just want the freedom to wear flip-flops every day. I don’t judge. But know this: You will be getting a crash course in repairing modems, Wi-Fi routers, laptops, keyboards, VPN issues, monitors, printers, Word crashes, and more. You will spend a lot of time Googling technical issues and using the Internet as your IT bible. And you will do it on deadline. And you will curse the technology gods. And you will run out and buy new and expensive office equipment at 8:45 p.m. on a Tuesday because you are the only person responsible for making sure your work is done and delivered. Personally, I love technology and I am drawn to writing and editing work that involves IT and networking and computer science—but you have to drop the whole “I can’t do that!” attitude and embrace your inner AV nerd. “JFGI” will become your mantra—and I recommend you Google that.

You need a website. As mentioned above, I’m comfortable with technology, so I built my own website. With the wide array of cheap, user-friendly website-building tools available online these days, you have no excuse for NOT having a website. My site serves several purposes: I sometimes use it to blog about things related to writing and editing, and I try to keep it light and playful, but still educational and professional. I never write about anything personal since this is my work website, not my “OMG! I LOVE BOURBON” website. I use it as a calling card, giving potential clients the URL. I use it to connect my multiple social network accounts (just the professional ones) and I use it to promote myself, sharing details about my resume, positive feedback from previous clients, and more.

Pick a Platform. Really, you’ll probably need most of them, from Twitter to Facebook, LinkedIn, and even those wacky Google+ Circles. You need to build a professional online version of yourself across multiple social networks. It’s a great way to find clients, referrals, and job sites, and to connect with other freelancers. It’s also—in 2015—an absolute requirement. You are e-schmoozing.

Time management. This is so important. I mean, it’s an art, a science, a religion, and the reason there are so many books, apps, and articles out there to help you manage your time. As a freelancer, nobody is checking your hours; nobody is guiding your schedule or verifying your progress on a project. It’s just you. I started in newspapers, so I have a deadline-oriented mentality; my biggest challenge was figuring out how to translate daily deadlines to monthly projects. It was a bit tricky at first and I put in a lot of late nights to make sure I met long-term deadlines in the first year. These days, though? I’m a master. I plot out my projects using online calendars and project-length to-do lists, breaking the work down into daily goals and weekly deliveries. I have my weekends off after three years of manic, panicked last-minute pushes thanks to taking time management seriously. It’s partly about putting in the organizational work and partly about realizing that you must separate your freelance work life from your personal life or risk your sanity. Defining work time and you time is a big challenge when freelancing. Most freelancers work from home, so delineating personal and work spaces is important. I have a home office upstairs and I find that physically walking upstairs to go to work helps focus my mind, while walking down those stairs at the end of the day helps me relax. You set your hours; the hard part is sticking to them. Only in the last six months have I finally committed to ignoring emails between 8 p.m. and 9 a.m.

Get organized. Speaking of organizing your time, there is so much more you’ll need to be on top of as a freelancer. When I first started, mainly as an editor, I already had experience working remotely so I was familiar with Google Drive, Dropbox, Basecamp and other software that can help you track documents, projects, and versioning. On top of being very smart about how you organize project files on your computer (think about versioning, easy access, and a system that will help you locate a specific answer to a question that pops up three weeks after you finished the project), you need to track your income for tax purposes, your upcoming work schedule, your home office costs, your actual working hours for various projects and clients, your data usage, your communications, your invoices, your account passwords, etc. I record my income, outstanding invoices, and my hours using spreadsheets. I use a combination of paper and electronic files to organize my work and correspondence, though I have been moving towards electronic more in the last year. Since it’s just you at your business, you have to be ready to account for your work, your communications, and your history with dozens of different clients. And you have to consider legal and NDA (non-disclosure agreements) issues when talking to anybody about your work. My general rule: I don’t name names, ever.

Be professional. It’s all riding on you. Your work, and your behavior, represents your business and affects whether a client will want to work with you again. Being sure to communicate clearly and regularly via email/Skype/phone is important. I prefer a playful and collaborative tone in my freelance communications, but I never use humor in written comms until after I’ve spent some time on the phone, in person, or in video chats with clients. Once they know my personality, my humor—always professional, never self-deprecating, complaining or distasteful—can be a great tool for connecting with clients, especially if we’re both under deadline. My ability to work quickly and efficiently under pressure, to meet deadlines, to produce clean copy, to voluntarily take the extra steps to the best job I am capable of… all of this is facilitated by my sense of humor. Except when it isn’t! I have worked with many people who do not see a place or a need for levity in work. I don’t understand these people, but I make every effort to conform to their tone. As a freelancer, while you may feel like you are boss-free, in reality, every client is your boss. You are always working to make their jobs easier, to provide great work, and to help them improve processes and workflows on their end. Professionalism must be reflected in everything you do, from your personal appearance in video chats to your business website and your phone voicemail message.

Get dressed. Oh, sure, in my early years of remote work and freelancing, I spent many a week un-showered, letting my teeth gather fur as I typed away in yoga pants and t-shirts. Please learn from my mistakes. If you are going to freelance, you must get dressed every day that you are working. Much like having a separate workspace, putting on “real” clothing helps you get into work mode and actually get things accomplished. A woman in her PJs at 4 p.m. on a Wednesday is a woman who is more likely to do the dishes or fold laundry. Whereas a woman who is dressed up, made up, and smiling with a sparkly, minty mouth of clean teeth is far more likely to actually be at her desk working on the project due Friday morning. You don’t have to shower every day (I love TRESemme’s Fresh Start Volumizing Dry Shampoo for sprucing up my un-showered hair up for an early-morning video call.), but you need to get out of your sleepwear and into daywear every day.

Know your value. This is especially meaningful for me, because when Javacia asked to interview me, I was somewhat dismissive and self-deprecating about my freelancing career, and putting myself down a bit. I realized after we talked that I was undervaluing the great lessons I’ve learned, the careful and conscientious—and just plain good!—work that I do. I genuinely care about every project I’m involved in and my big problem is taming my work ethic, not growing it. I’m still standing after all the hard lessons, lean times, and maddening deadlines. And more than that, I’m experienced and in demand as a writer and editor. I’m living the dream. But, aside from emotional value, I want to touch on your actual monetary value. It will depend on your field, your experience, and the specific work you are being asked to do. One thing I know many freelancers do at the start is undercharge. Do your research to find out what the going rate is for the work you’re being asked to do, and not just online but reach out to other freelancers and headhunters for input. Negotiate your fees if you want to—I will for charity or to support anything education-related—but don’t apologize for them. I can’t tell you how many friend-of-a-friend referrals I got for somebody’s aunt who “just wrote a book” and needed an editor. I would offer the reduced friend-rate, but old “aunt author” hadn’t done any research into what editing actually costs and after receiving my estimate would never contact me again! (Rude.) Know your audience, know your value, and know how much you can afford to charge. I have worked on projects, especially in the beginning, that wound up earning me $10 an hour. Remember, I’m paying almost half my income to the IRS so that meant I was really making about $6.50 an hour. Never again. It’s up to you to know how much money you need to make to break even. It’s also up to you to know when to walk away. After all, you’re the boss.

Danielle Hayden is a freelance writer and editor who transforms technology and business info into engaging, relatable content. Danielle, who has a background in both journalism and software, has been freelancing since 2011 and has worked on a wide array of topics and media, from computer networking course development to book editing to web site copywriting and editing and much more. Learn more about her work at http://dbhediting.com.