I've been doing a day here, a day there, all summer whilst I spend 4 days a week working on the startup. I simply call people I know with small businesses, or charities, and after a short chat to see how they are, I ask them whether they or any of their neighbouring businesses have work that needs doing.
I bill £500 per day, and have got work every day I've sought it.
Sometimes I build a Wordpress site. Sometimes I fix their wifi and network. Other times I get their backup systems working and I test them. For some charities I take my experience with contracts and project management and I review their request for bids and the offers the receive. One company pays me a monthly retainer to configure their Google Apps, as they just want a technical person who is on their side they can call should something go wrong.
I do anything that they need doing, even though my skills whoosh above their needs.
You might say that this is because of London and a surplus of SMEs needing help, and perhaps it is.
Though London wasn't the reason the fanzine thing worked, because I was homeless and hitching from town to town at the time. It worked in Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Portsmouth. You might say that fanzines are just a UK thing, you might be right. I also think it's because when I didn't put the headline band on the cover I couldn't shift more than 10 copies... you sell people something they are interested in, so I put the headline band that they're seeing on the cover.
Sell value, sell what people want. People always want something, and in this time people want help with tech stuff.