Speaking from experience, the trick is to own the sales channel. If you've managed to end up in a room with lots of other developers, particularly lots of other unqualified developers (RentACoder), you've already lost before you've even bid on a single project.
What you've got to do is
A) Think very hard about where your clients are at this very moment, physically, in the world, and then
B) Go to that place.
Those two steps are more sales than 99% of the developers in the world will ever do in their entire lives. Nothing wrong with that, as a lot of them have work. But if you don't, that's how to get it.
I read through several of your blog posts --- very informative!
How'd you get your start? (If I understand correctly, you're a freelance iPhone developer living in Austin. Awesome! That's the next city on my to-live list, if I can just scrape together a way to get out of St Louis.)
How much work did it take before you could turn a profit as a freelancer? (Whatever 'profit' happens to be to you.)
I'm so bored, a couple nights ago I wrote my own Minecraft server in C from the ground-up. I'm chomping at the bits to work on anyone else's project, but it's hard to find clients (without doing what you suggested).
What you've got to do is
A) Think very hard about where your clients are at this very moment, physically, in the world, and then
B) Go to that place.
Those two steps are more sales than 99% of the developers in the world will ever do in their entire lives. Nothing wrong with that, as a lot of them have work. But if you don't, that's how to get it.