I've been working exclusively on my own apps for most of the last year but I've recently acquired a few clients that have looked me up on their own based on their experience with my apps.

You can see the apps I've made so far here: http://www.plastaq.com

So I can't really offer you specific advice on finding clients except for maybe to think of your own apps as pieces of a portfolio as much as sources of revenue on their own.

I'm currently living and working in Vietnam so at the moment I'm charging my clients a lot less than the $150+/hr a good iOS dev can get in S.F. or New York but my living expenses are a lot lower here and I hope to gradually increase my rates for new work as I build a roster of clients.

Working on my own apps is more fun, of course, but actually making money is a good thing too.

Awesome, thanks for sharing. So you haven't tried using freelance websites or attempted to put yourself out there at all? I looked at your site and it doesn't even say you're available for client work :)

Nope. In fact I wasn't actually even looking for contract work, although I'm happy to have it.

I've looked a little at some of the sites like ODesk or Elance but all the job listings I saw there and the bids offered were a joke.

I think it's easy to dismiss freelance websites like elance but they are a good place to get started. I started using them in 2010 and continue to use them occasionally. Every now I got a client from them that has become a regular client now that provides a lot of revenue to my business.

Can you tell us more about using sites like Elance? Once you got a regular client did you have to tripe (or more) your rate? If so was the client ok with that?

It seems like the rates on Elance wouldn't be sustainable.

Once you get a client for repeat work they are usually happy to pay a higher rate because they know from working with you once they are pretty much guaranteed good work.

I've had several clients who had bad experiences on elance and other sites (undelivered work, bad developers etc). They decided to give it one more try and hired me. They don't want to risk the bad experience again and are willing to pay more to continue working with me (and we work outside the freelance sites from that stage on). It's an expensive and timely process to find a good developer so once clients find one they like to stick with them.

If I never used these sites I think it would be pretty difficult to ever find clients. Most of my other clients come through recommendations by clients I originally found on elance etc.