How do you find private clients to write for? Lately, I have been using craigslist and it has been working pretty well.
While there are a lot of "one time" jobs here on DigitalPoint, sometimes you might get lucky and earn yourself a recurring client that you can write for. Other than directly approaching potential clients, you can try following up with past customers who liked your service and see if they have any other projects in the future.
A good way to find clients is to do a Google search for a market that you are comfortable writing for and then send the website owners a short email explaining what you have to offer. Depending on their reply I would then choose the most promising replies and then offer them a free initial article. Why? 1 You demonstrate you expertise and quality of your work 2 You make use of the law of reciprocity (It has worked wonders in my life) Dr Robert Cialdini has an excellent book on this subject (its one of my favourite books) I did a quick Google search and found a good PDF whitepaper that summarizes the six laws of persuation www.fintaga.si/news/WP_Greer_Persuasion_new.pdf There is a very good Youtube video that shows Dr Cialdini explaining it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkyGOAWoYxA I have fantastic results with this strategy. I hope I was able to help you with your question
I personally think the best way to find them is forums. This forum and many other 'marketing' forums out there. Go post, help people out, answer questions and in turn you'll get the clients.
The easiest way, as iComEric said is eLance or oDesk (or similar outsource/freelance websites). A better, longer-term and perhaps more profitable method is: 1. Find a SPECIFIC niche and become a master at it. 2. Set up a website, put up samples of your work. 3. Get visitors to sign up for your email list where you will send them free content, service, tips etc ("top 3 mistakes people make when searching for a writer") 4. Overtime, earn the right to sell to them ("hey, if you liked that stuff you got for free, then you'll LOVE this one-to-one done-for-you writing service I just created..." 5. Ask happy customers for referrals 6. Go from there. The most important step is number one (and making sure the quality of your articles are REMARKABLE).
I don't know if you've checked the Warrior Forum, but they've got a section called Warriors for Hire and I've heard that it works pretty well for various gigs.