Ask HN:How to break out from online freelance marketplaces to find quality work?

Contribute to open source projects. As soon as you have commit access to gcc, you will be making at least $200k+ year, hehe.

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. :-)

We're building matchist (http://matchist.com/talent) to solve this problem by creating a place for quality developers to find quality work.

We've found that our clients prefer developers who are great communicators and can provide guidance on their projects. They're looking for partners, not just somebody with Rails skills.

As a few have commented here already, your written communication could be improved to help inspire more confidence in potential clients. (I mean this as constructive feedback, not criticism.)

I recently start working in freelance , and I think that the payment doesn't worth it ,and the employers are not generally serious, you keep waiting for the payment , and they usually don't pay , now I deliver work like a demo , it only works for a few days , just so that I can be sure they pay . ps: what websites do you use ?

A developer that makes $70/hr is more than a developer - they are an architect, a persuader, a researcher and a leader.

In other words, soft skills, non-technical skills - communication skills. Yes there some recluses that can get top dollar and not be social but they are the exception.