You're right in that it's not about "finding clients." It's about making clients find you. Most of the higher-paying freelance writing gigs aren't advertised and out there to simply be "found" at any freelance job site.
Well freelance websites are not worthwhile to refer. I am not against them but it would be better if you could get projects from your personal and professional network. Try to converse with few content writing companies to hire you as a freelancer
I admire what you wrote here, but the question is how to promote ourselves in the market? How to make ourselves visible in the market? I am a writer and I am seeking some good opportunities to write.
I personally feel, a new word to define those writers who reword online articles should be 'wrimix' something on the lines of remix, the word used to describe musical mix.
There's really no way we can give you a solid rundown on how to market yourself as a writer. There are too many options, many given to you would probably be pretty generic (and wouldn't work as well as you'd hope), and the right marketing mix depends on your specific target market. I'm running a marketing bootcamp series at www.queryfreefreelancer.com that might help, but what I suggest is that you spend some time reading freelance blogs and freelance writing blogs, and then go order a marketing fundamentals textbook or something (you can get a used older version for less than $10 I'm sure). This way you'll learn the basics and still get more direct information from other freelancers.
Well, from my experience I can say that JHMattern is absolutely right about these 'freelance sites'. I have been earning much more ever since I started looking everywhere else. Clients will almost always pay you more when they come to you and not the other way around. Why? Simply because they already see you as a good fit and are willing to pay you a good price for your services. There's no convincing involved, just negotiations.
odesk, elance and guru are good ones. getafreelancer is good if you do not mind working for small amounts. New entrant ezdia also shows good promises.
I have used GetAFreelancer with success. Though as jjmatthern stated these are not high paying jobs. But over time I have learned to pick out those who are looking for quality work. The first job may not get me lots of money but 90% of the time I got a loyal client who now pays a fair price.
GAF - working for peanuts most of time, around 1 million of coders !!!!, very hard to win a project. Guru - well, it would be number 2, pretty good like elance, but way too much competition like in GAF which not controlled in any way by stuff like needed RAC - highest fees for withdraw money among all, stupid expert guarantee terms and so on. Was much better for freelancer 5-6 years ago. Almost all jobs - peanuts. Just look at it's Inc 5000 revenue. Also very dishonest arbitrators, they are always on the buyers side. Odesk - could be good, but this per hour thing just not acceptable. It's not FREElance. As well as not much money Scriptlance - since it's start it was gaining popularity and was crowded, but it looks for now lot of people leave which again make it mice choice to get jobs, with somewhat nice budget sometimes. Stuff did nice things like min bid amount a bit higher and it looks it worked out. Elance - GREAT IN ALMOST EVERY WAY YOU MAY EVEN THINK! I wouldn't even talk about it there So worst for freelancer today is probably RAC, believe me I am coder as well. Best - Elance.
A new site called Maximum Edit is promising to be the next wave of online freelancing. Booking higher paid jobs, But you must be higher quality.
Just to add to what Jenn already said about Odesk and hourly work for freelancers...some horror story, from the side of BUYER by the way! So it's not like some people want to make it look. Good luck with hourly payments http://www.odesk.com/community/node/9044