But seriously, devote sometime to create your image, whether writing open source or giving presentations. It's good and it makes you more skillful. I actually love writing OSS, even more than money.
A good freelance job offer usually COMES to you. The one I've been working to I've got from a HN spreadsheet. I contribute to one of the libraries that they used internally in the project so... they accepted me at first sight.
I don't have your amount of experience and I make ~$40/h(which is low by market's standard!). Having good communication skills and being able to let your client have almost no overhead from managing you can clearly be VERY VALUABLE. It's actually the employer's dream to find someone like this.
I've also worked with bad freelance jobs: didn't pay me in time, codebase was shitty and so on. I advise you to drop ship and look for something else. I have pleasure when I work
Aim to be a contractor bringing way more on the table than just flipping bits skills. :-)