Don't listen to those who say that freelancing is nothing to do without experience. I started from scratch back in high school once. Of course, I wrote PHP/Perl bydlokod. Customers who need just cheap contractor, and that don't need super quality — full. Books on any PHP — not "for 24 hours, for dummies, etc.". Koterova read, if you good with English — Zend PHP Certification Guide is also browse — literate washed there sometimes you can read how to do, and how not to. I'm talking about freelance Russian — English don't know what's going on with web development. It seems to me that Hindus do not really compete in terms bidoversity.
Another option — a friend went on a foreign exchange at the 2 courses in C++. Studying — I don't know.
I read a book "PHP for hackers" at the time. This thin little book, which tells about the SQL ingessena, PHP-includingi, etc. Show code examples, you learned how not to do very well with my head right at first. And all sorts of code refactoring, Design Patterns are not those books that must be read to the student without experience in software development IMHO. And especially not those books that will help you to successfully start working on freelancing.