Instant success took only four years to accomplish: I've been blogging for quite some time now about my business and the kind of things I've done to improve it. For example, Rails programming, SEO, A/B testing, what have you. These are valuable to a broad spectrum of businesses which have rather more money than I do.

When I wanted to do some consulting work, I contacted folks I knew from blogging (and other forms of participation on the Internet) and said "Hey, are you interested in buying my time? I know you need X, you know I can do X very well, how's about I X for you?" (Both of them said "X is kind of meh but if you could Y we'd be thrilled", and happily I could Y, too.)

How much you charge starting out is entirely a market question. I'll give you my typical pricing advice for anything: "Charge more." You will have better clients, because cheapskates are disproportionately pathological clients, and your clients will be happier with your work. Price communicates an expectation of value, and that framing is shockingly durable. Incidentally, if they're hiring you rather than an undifferentiated freelancer in X, then the global market clearing price is whatever you say it is.

You can also get inbound offers in a similar fashion. (If I were more interested in them, I'd have a page on my site advertising my availability and making a focused case for hiring me, and I'd optimize that page with all the tricks I use for product pages. And detail exactly how I did it on the page, because that is, after all, a visible indication that I'm good at what I claim to be good at.)