Hi @Lesley and welcome to the forum and to TrustedHousesitters. I’ll touch on a few points that may help answer some of your questions.
More sitters have been waiting closer to the start dates over the past two years. September is still too far away for many to consider booking, whereas some sitters are booked into 2023. The variety of sitters and lifestyles are as varied as the sits. 
It can help to embed your listing in your forum profile. Forum members can then view it and give constructive feedback, or apply, of course.
How to add your listing to your forum username/profile
Also take a look at this post, and in particular Angela’s tips and consider those points.
The most likelihood of success in finding a sitter is through the main website. However, if you do invite sitters, first check their calendar and make sure there aren’t any black lines through your dates as this means they are already booked for a THS sit. Other than that, for now I’d disregard the calendar colouring as not all sitters use their THS calendar.
Notice the spyglass search option in the green header bar. If you have questions, you can search key words there and find relevant posts. It’s good to do some reading on the forum as it can be really helpful. If you don’t find what you’re looking for, then ask and forum members will do their best to help.
Francine,
Voluntary Forum Moderator