I do have a little bit of a buffer. My client's site is also profitable, so they'll be able to pay me in the next few weeks. But I'll have to ease back the hours with them, so am looking for some more projects.
I think it's obvious why you're finding demand to be so low when you've set your price so high.
The amount you want for 60 hours a week ($9k) could get two extremely experienced engineers and provide them with a massive bonus incentive on top of their salary almost anywhere in the world.
It comes across as a bit delusional.
I've been working with my current client for the last 3 months. He brought me on at $150 per hour after he had to fire his previous contractors, and I've been cleaning up their mess ever since. I've heard of quite a few situations like this, but I'm sure that there are cheaper developers out there who are doing great work.
Demand for part-time + remote jobs seems to be pretty low in general, but I don't think my rate is the issue.
I am able to charge this much because of my experience with startups, and my open source contributions. I was an early engineer at a startup which is now worth over $500 million, and I'm currently the CTO at my own startup.
Obviously networking is one of my major weaknesses, and I need to work on that.
I get what you're saying, but as an employer, the "non negotiable" and inflexible attitude is a point-blank no for me. Your OS contributions (caveat: spent 2 minutes looking) are hardly much (lists on github are not 'valuable programming', to me it's just content marketing that may as well be on a blog) compared to people asking for 1/2 to 2/3 of your proposed salary, who have core contribs, manage production-deployed packages/code that are in frequent use etc.
Your mileage may vary, so best of luck. But that's my perspective, as an employer, looking for remote devs. The competition is actually pretty high, and you can get awesome candidates that might earn $120-160k a year when working in the valley for $80-120k due to the lower costs they can incur ('valley tax') and the flexibility you offer as a remote employer.
Don't get me wrong, I know the value of a high-priced consultant (am/was one) to fix an emergency. But you're not asking people to deliver you an emergency, you're asking for a job. And to deliver in an emergency, you need a hell of a lot more credibility and slickness, which your post suggest you don't have.
* might be one, might be more. Depends on who applies and what it looks like.
At your suggested rate, these clients will be able to get an on-location contractor with significantly more experience (think 10-15 years). I.e. No hassle with international payments, timezones and what not.
Compare that to what you are suggesting: A very high cost (150 USD an hour) at a very high risk (completely unknown resource). This makes it a highly unappealing business proposal.
For you to get that rate while being remote, you need to have already established yourself with such clients, i.e. You need to have worked for them before and built a lot of trust.