I prefer to strike out on my own, find a small group of looters, defeat them and then sell the loot and prisoners. Personally however I find its not worth it because you'll spend a long time sat in a castle/city or wandering around the map. You get a salary and a little experience and if there's a battle then you get extra experience and maybe some loot.
The first thing some people will do is sign up as a freelancer in a lord's army. There are quite a lot of threads out there about making money so you could google those for tips but I'll give my 2 cents below. How you want to make money will ultimately depend on you character. Yes tournaments are a good way to make money (and win renown and nice equipment) but for a brand new character tournaments are going to be pretty challenging.
That's tough if you've spent your time up till then raiding villages.
Whatever story line you imagine for your character, if you want to become an independent king at some point then you're going to need lots of honour and high relations with a lot of lords. The penalties to your honour, relationship with the village and relationship to the lord who owns the village mean its just not worth it.
