Sign up on moonlightwork.com. It’s a great community for this exact sort of thing. The advice here sucks. Don’t give up on this idea. I make my living freelancing and a fair portion of that income is from Moonlight.
I joined moonlightwork early on. Never have landed a job through it, or any other freelancing site (so I suppose I can't say whether it's any better or worse than the rest). At various points throughout my career, I've fantasized about quitting Full time work and freelancing. I gave up on the idea after a few potential clients wanted me to work for peanuts. Close as I got was a few short-lived negotiations where I re…
Freelancing is a numbers game - you need to have a funnel of work in order to keep a stable income. We try to screen out bad clients as much as possible on Moonlight, but you'll run into them and need to know when to just say no. It's the same challenges most small businesses have anywhere in the world.
Finally, if you want to get philosophical, Gresham's Law in economics is really illustrated here - "bad money drives out good". Basically, the people who are trying to pay below-market are constantly looking for workers. People who pay fair wages are not having turnover, so not hiring as often. It's just something to keep in mind - that the cross-section of people looking to hire does not accurately represent the transactions of the overall industry.