books? ... use your contacts at first, this is important, you get your feet wet, get first successful project under your belt and probably will get paid on time

books? ... use your contacts at first, this is important, you get your feet wet, get first successful project under your belt and probably will get paid on time and in full if your contacts are trustworthy charging hourly is the beginning of contracting, but makes you count minutes and report as such which can be pain in the ass level above that is setting up a daily rate another level above is payment per milestone / project delivered - never tried this one, if attempted as solo contractor you can shoot yourself in the foot easily, as we all know software projects get underestimated all the time.. red flags? being hired on already running project to salvage it, because someone somewhere screwed something up by underestimating the complexity or their skills and now the deadline is close and budget was already drained ...