First of all, welcome to the forum. You have a lot of questions, and many of them can be answered by searching through past posts on this site. there are also links to some other good business sites. This business section was only recently started, so in the past business posts have been in the General Section.
A lot of what you're asking comes with experience, but your immediate need seems to be the next job. Let your friends, family, church, etc. know you're in business and looking.
The rates seem high because we include our business expenses in our rate. If you don't you'll take a long painful trip out-of-business. If I had a "most important" bit of advice for longevity, it's...surviving the slow spells. You've been busy with a GC, now you have to find your own work. Sometimes having a lot of smaller customers also can carry you through slow times. When you have one big customer and lose their business you lose a large percentage of your income...a tough position to be in. On the other hand I had an 8-month slow spell (with 350 customers) which I attribute to "fear of the economy". If you're not a survivor I'd suggest looking for a job with someone else and picking up a little work on the side until it builds into more than you can handle on evenings and weekends.
Dave
