I was working at a startup before contracting so my advice won't necessarily be what you're looking for but since I started looking for clients about 1 month after the end of my job, I guess it still counts.
Depending on where you are (I'm in London), lots of contracts are offered through recruitment agencies so put your CV out there and you will get spammed by recruiters (several of them contacting you for permanent position in a different country and using things not even mentioned in your CV, you can safely mark those recruiters as spam).
One important thing is to not bother looking if you're not free pretty much immediately, you're supposed to be free in less than a week or immediately so if you're looking for clients with a 1-2 months notice, you won't get any.
For the interviews part, all the one I had were very simple, some without a single technical question.
As desarun said, an important thing is to get an accountant and create a company (not sure outside of the UK).
Anyway to give you an idea, my first contract was 3 days a week and I was still making more than my previous fulltime job.
Depending on where you are (I'm in London), lots of contracts are offered through recruitment agencies so put your CV out there and you will get spammed by recruiters (several of them contacting you for permanent position in a different country and using things not even mentioned in your CV, you can safely mark those recruiters as spam).
One important thing is to not bother looking if you're not free pretty much immediately, you're supposed to be free in less than a week or immediately so if you're looking for clients with a 1-2 months notice, you won't get any.
For the interviews part, all the one I had were very simple, some without a single technical question.
As desarun said, an important thing is to get an accountant and create a company (not sure outside of the UK).
Anyway to give you an idea, my first contract was 3 days a week and I was still making more than my previous fulltime job.
Again if you're in the UK, this book is really good: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Contractors-Handbook-Expert-Guide-Fr...