Because I have a website and blog that I update frequently, and I teach regularly at workshops and conferences, I’m pretty visible as copywriters and content strategists go—something of an anomaly for a profession that attracts folks who usually prefer to stick behind the computer screen, hooked up to an IV drip of coffee or Red Bull. Over the past few years, this visibility has led to a bunch of inquiries from writers who are just starting out and are hoping for advice or mentorship. Though I really do enjoy mentoring and wish I had the time to help everyone who asks, the reality is that a girl’s gotta pay her bills, and that means more time working and less time yapping. So I put together these 10 tips for how to start a writing business—all culled from personal experience and years’ worth of slip-ups, hard knocks, and successes.

Take this advice, build on it, and ditch the stuff that isn’t effective for your particular niche. Then create a writing business that works for you.

1. Be politely persistent. I was always a good writer—sometimes even an inspired one—but I didn’t get my biggest career breaks solely based on the quality of my work. Especially in the early years, I actively pursued jobs and projects, sometimes e-mailing or calling frequently enough that I felt like a total nuisance.

But the old adage “The squeaky wheel gets the grease” is true, and as long as you’re polite, most clients or editors won’t think you’re a pest. Given their busy schedules, they’re usually grateful for the reminder. And sometimes an idea they were lukewarm about two months ago suddenly sounds more appealing now that they’ve had another piece fall through. Don’t be afraid to take advantage of those opportunities.

2. Take an on-staff writing job to establish yourself. This might seem like a no-brainer, but it’s incredibly hard to develop a good reputation and a solid portfolio, let alone book consistent freelance work, when you have little to no street cred. I found this out the hard way when I left a publishing job (and a sweet but incompetent boss) without really knowing what’s involved in how to start a writing business, namely creating a strong portfolio and building up contacts. The result? I was back to a traditional office job in about a year. Only after I’d spent another 10 years in different positions that gave me a wealth of experience, exposure to a wide network of contacts, and a larger-than-average portfolio did I attempt the indie route again. And this time, from day one, it worked like RuPaul on the runway.

Do yourself a massive favor and don’t try to go freelance until you’ve spent at least a couple of years in an on-staff writing position. Not only will you gain a better understanding what potential clients/employers are looking for, but you can amass a set of high-quality clips that have instant credibility.

3. Don’t expect the mountain to come to Mike or Mildred. Even in our global-digital culture, it’s not enough to set up a website full of fabulous portfolio samples and hope people find it (regardless of how good your SEO is, and unless you want to blow a lot of money on advertising).

Just to give you some context, I’ve been writing professionally in a variety of roles—editorial, corporate communications, copywriting, brand messaging, content marketing—for 20 years. The ratio of my seeking clients to clients seeking me only shifted in favor of the latter about 7 years ago. And my website, which has been up and running for about four years, started to generate a serious number of inquiries from clients who are a good match for me, and vice versa, within the past two.

There are thousands of writers in the world—many better than you and many more worse—but the unfortunate truth is that being in the right place at the right time and knowing the right people often matters more than raw talent or good SEO. Add to that the fact that clients will always prefer to do business with people they trust, and trust develops much more quickly when they can put a face with a name. No matter how introverted you are (and, oh, I am, I am), get out from behind your laptop and make it a point to meet people—as in, in person—and cultivate opportunities, even if there don’t seem to be any on the surface.

4. Don’t do it thinking you’ll get rich. Sure, you read an article online by someone professing to make “$950 an hour writing from my couch,” or programs promising to teach you “how to make $2,000 an hour as a copywriter.” Somebody published it, so that means it’s true. Right? Right??? I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but most of these claims smell fishier than a two-day-old tilapia taco.

Unless you are 1) very, very lucky and manage to find an anchor client or benefactor with endlessly deep pockets and a constant stream of projects, 2) in a super-high-paying niche (such as pharmaceutical writing), or 3) extraordinarily good at scrimping and saving, you will, almost certainly, not get rich as a freelance writer. This is especially true if, like me, you want nothing to do with living in a big, crowded city.

If you fall into this small-town camp, know that you can—if you’re willing to put the extra effort into it—actually build a successful writing career. You won’t be wealthy, but you’ll make a good living—and it will feel that much more comfortable in a place where you’re not paying $2,000 a month for an apartment the size of a Macy’s dressing room or $6 for a thimbleful of coffee. You’ll pay your monthly bills and taxes easily enough and have some left over for your retirement account (you’re in index funds, right?), plus the occasional dinner with friends, concert, trip, or a modest impulse purchase.

If you choose the big-city route, you’ll definitely make more money. But the cost of living will be about twice as high, so when you total up all the costs, you’re not really coming out that far ahead, if at all. Go for quality of life, not quantity of zeroes on the paycheck.

5. Do it for free only if necessary. When you’re in the early stages of planning how to start a writing business, getting assignments—never mind well-paying assignments—seems harder than trying to reason with your racist uncle Steve at Thanksgiving dinner (we all have one). The majority of experienced writers, present company included, have written for free at some point, but most of us no longer do, because we don’t need to. My advice for getting from free to paid in the least amount of time is to do it only if:

• It will open an important door or forge a connection you wouldn’t have been able to make otherwise
• It’s for a cause you genuinely believe in and want to be part of
• It will generate a priceless portfolio sample that you can use to generate oodles of business

If you accept an assignment for free, be prepared for the client to come back asking for more freebies. The best way to avoid this? Set your limits at the beginning. For instance, offer to write two free blog posts at 500 words apiece if they purchase a 1,500-word blog post. Or tell them at the time of booking that you’re providing the service gratis the first time around, and you’ll be happy to discuss fees for future projects. Then define the scope of the project as narrowly as possible before you start, so you don’t wind up giving away the farm.

6. Always follow through to the letter of the assignment memo or contract. I recently connected a client of mine with a photographer acquaintance—we’ll call him Eli. The client hired Eli for a series of paid photo shoots and a specific set of deliverables, all of which were clearly outlined in the contract. Eli proceeded to ignore or make excuses for not completing tasks from a legally binding contract. When the client prompted Eli, he claimed he was too busy to do simple things, like create a preliminary shot list. Fed up, the client replaced him with a photographer who didn’t view basic tasks as beneath her.

The moral of this story: if you make a promise, whether through an e-mail agreement or a written contract (hint: always go for the written contract), deliver on it. Did the client ask for a 1,500-word article on trends in pet grooming? Then make sure you turn it in within no more than 50 words fewer or over the word count. Has the client specified that they want you insert a paragraph they wrote into your precious copy? Say “Sure, send it along!” Then make a few judicious edits and find a way to work it in.

Demonstrating laziness or arrogance is a surefire way to telegraph, whether you intend it or not, that you don’t take the client seriously or you think your time is more important than theirs. Nobody likes working with a diva or an asshole, so don’t be an Eli.

7. Be on time. Clients don’t care if your car broke down, you have a toothache, you’re a chronic procrastinator who “works best under pressure,” or your guinea pig ate your brochure copy. Lateness signals unreliability and a lack of respect for the client’s deadlines, and, well, see what happens to unreliable, disrespectful folks in number 6.

Turn every assignment in on time. If you really want to be your client’s best friend, occasionally turn in your work a couple days early. If you have a legitimate reason why you must be late—a death in the family or a computer meltdown resulting in the loss of hundreds of files (been there), for example—for the love of craft cider, please contact the client as soon as you have an inkling that you’ll be tardy; then apologize and politely ask for an extension.

8. Don’t take it personally. This is the hardest lesson for writers to understand when they’re in the early stages of starting a writing business, and can be sometimes be a challenge even for experienced writers, including me. On occasion, I’ve allowed myself to get so close to my work that I’ve spun my wheels into a whirl of all-day upset when the client has asked for a revision or—[insert pearl-clutching gasp]—changed something without asking me. This is neither a productive use of my mental energy nor a good way to endear myself to clients.

To be frank, sometimes our work needs to be edited or revised. And sometimes clients are, objectively and empirically, dead wrong. Sometimes they just want to put their personal stamp on a project. Sometimes they’re so enamored of their own wording, they don’t get that you chose those h1 and h2 tags for a reason, and it was to help their SEO, please and thank you. And sometimes they, with the best of intentions, find a way to take something good and turn it into a hotter-than-a-Dumpster-fire mess.

I won’t pretend it never bothers me anymore when a client asks for a change I don’t agree with. If she’s changing something that could negatively affect her SEO or how her brand is perceived, I gently point it out.

But for everything else, I now think of it this way: The client is buying a product. I am providing the product, and I’m responsible for delivering it to her specifications. If I’ve met this criteria, what the client then does with the product is not really my business, any more than the sales associate behind the Anthropologie counter should care which pair of jeans I wear my new sweater with.

What if the client’s handiwork is exploding-Dumpster-fire bad? (You will run across a few of these in your writing career.) Collect on your invoice and make sure the check clears, but don’t include the work in your portfolio. Problem solved.

9. Follow up, and ask for referrals. Testimonials and referrals can be powerful business-building tools, especially if your portfolio is still on the slim side. If a project has gone well and the client is happy, ask if he would be willing to provide a written testimonial, a Facebook or Yelp review, or a LinkedIn recommendation. Always thank clients for their business, remind them that you’d love to work with them in the future, and you would appreciate it if they could spread the word to any fellow businesspeople who might be in need of your services.

10. Let go of comparisons and the ideal of perfection. Believing that everything you do has to be perfect or comparing yourself to competitors or people who seem to have it all together—or at least to claim to on social media—is a high-speed ticket to Imposter Syndromeville. Focus on the quality of what you write, your efficiency and reliability, and generally being a person that other people enjoy working with, and you’ll find yourself turning around projects a lot faster than if you waste your mental energy on how things might look to the outside world.

Likewise, while Johnny Influencer may tell you in his latest not-really-live live webinar that the only way to get to 10,000 Instagram followers is by posting every day, you will occasionally be too busy or tired to adhere to these “rules” (yes, “rules”). And guess what. The world will not stop turning, you will not lose all of the followers you have overnight, and your career will not come to a screeching, skidmarks-on-pavement halt.

Take the afternoon off, read a book, listen to a podcast, go to a museum, dip your feet in the ocean, or do anything else that helps you recharge the creative batteries. Then remind yourself that you’re a writer. And while others are agonizing over how to arrange the perfect flat lay from a cup of stale coffee, an iPhone, and a notebook and pen that have never seen a moment’s worth of actual use, you’re laser-focused on how to start a writing business and build a career that isn’t dependent on the number of kissy-face emojis you get, but on the quality of the stories you tell. And unlike emojis, trending social media channels, and lousy flat lays, being a good storyteller never goes out of style.