How to turn self-employment into employment? 
sireat: I had an even more extreme situation: 15 years of self-employed bumming, startups, small-business and I did very little programming.How I got a full-time programming job:Find industry that I was interested in.Research company that I was interested in.Brush up on industry and company specific domain knowledge.Tailored my CV to be relevant to company.Get interview(direct personal e-mail to person responsible for hiring).Nail linked-list building and recursive tree traversal in the interview.Show industry specific knowledge in the interview.Get job.Note: industry specific knowledge was as important as  programming knowledge.