I've managed to get interest from a few clients in Kelowna, BC, by attending some of the local New Ventures BC seminars. I'm not a real social guy, so all the networking leaves me pretty exhausted, but I've already made some great contacts and set myself up to do pretty well. I don't think you can beat face-to-face interaction with people.<p>Edit: Kelowna isn't that big (100k), so I don't think you need to live in an especially large center (unless your skills are extremely specific) for this kind of local networking to be effective.
I would suggest that you build up a 'professional' social network around you. In Germany <a href="http://xing.com" rel="nofollow">http://xing.com</a> is very popular among business people. I do not know enough about other social networks like Facebook or LinkedIn to recommend something to you, but my point is: I do not get my contracts from 'project websites'. Since many years nearly all contracts are the result of recommendations of former clients or people that do what I do.
To get your first gig, I would suggest that you ask everybody you know, whether they could use your service, or know somebody who might be interested.<p>Best luck and have fun.
Try <a href="http://www.globfreelance.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.globfreelance.com</a>, i am a programmer and made $700 right after posting my portfolio in there
They got a dataentry project posted , easy job, why don't you create a profil in there and make money? Time is money you know.The site is new, but they got lesser restrictions, just don'tpost your email or url, cause they don't like it.My girlfriend made $70 this weekend for an article project
Depending on where you're located, the Craigslist "gigs" section is hit or miss, but can net well-paying stuff, since you're generally only competing against other local people.