[CowboyRobot]

My most reliable clients have been through contacts I made when I had crap cubicle jobs. I don't know your situation but it may be worth snagging a cube job long enough to meet people. And it may be totally counter-intuitive and potentially mind-crushing, but the people in sales meet all the clients who have money to spend on development. If you could find your way into the social events that sales people go to you'll be halfway there. It's cynical, but getting gigs depends on people seeing you as "a good guy" more than whatever skills you have.

That said, one trick I learned was to always scan the local news looking for local businesses who recently got grants or some other windfall of funding. I assumed (usually correctly) that they would spend some of that windfall on building or revamping their website. I got some good long-term work that way. It was a cold call, but one with research behind it