This might seem like a dumb question, but is it possible that "not even charging that much" leads to "can't seem to get taken seriously"?
The reason I ask is that over the years, I've been on both the buying and selling side of technical products and services. And I've noticed it's common that extremely price-sensitive customers won't take you seriously no matter how little you charge.
On the flip side, customers who understand the ROI they'll get from your work often won't balk at prices higher than you think are reasonable.
But I know that it's not always possible to just start charging more, depending on what you sell and who you sell it to.
This may be a factor, but I also initially worked for a non-profit. That's the majority of my paid work on the ground in town here.
I'm relatively new to town and I am a freelance writer and blogger by trade and I know something about creating an online business because of it. I feel like if I am too critical of what other website people do who are more long-time locals, I'm basically cutting my own throat.
There's a lot of factors and they are hard to tease out. I feel like no one online would likely pay me to help them set up a blogspot site. I spend a lot of time on Hacker News and people here role their own and probably wouldn't see any value in paying me for what I know about the backend of blogspot and how to do design work in that venue.
I'm more technically inclined than most locals and there's a big chasm between me and them on trying to convey why what I do has value. I can see value in it, but I don't know how to explain it and I am not good at sales. I have experience doing volunteer work and I sort of fell into doing more of that, which I can't really afford to do because I'm a dirt poor freelancer. I need to find a way to improve my income.
The reason I ask is that over the years, I've been on both the buying and selling side of technical products and services. And I've noticed it's common that extremely price-sensitive customers won't take you seriously no matter how little you charge.
On the flip side, customers who understand the ROI they'll get from your work often won't balk at prices higher than you think are reasonable.
But I know that it's not always possible to just start charging more, depending on what you sell and who you sell it to.