Getting recognition

The problem about my life is nothing to do with lack of ability or talent.
The problem with my life is not unwillingness to work (though there are limits that I will place on this - my brain is my strength, my hands are only good for using a keyboard, and I WILL NOT UNDERTAKE VIRTUAL SLAVE LABOUR AT McDONALDS OR BURGER KING! I am a brain worker. I am also absolutely useless at selling things).
I have no great desire to be self-employed, although I tend to be an independent thinker, who will not conform just for the sake of it.
The major problem that I always have had, and probably always will have, is getting known.
When I was offered my first job in Germany, they were astonished just how brilliant was the quality of the work that I produced. It took a few weeks to get established, but after that, the sky was the proverbial limit.
After I left, I thought that my reputation would follow me ....
Some hope. It is always the same, nobody seems to like good news stories from the past.
Yesterday I applied for a post that I saw advertised on Elance.com. A translator. German to English, French to English I can do extremely well. I offered them a rate that was reasonable, and enough to allow me to survive here (after paying tax, medical insurance, rent, the ever increasingly extortionate utility bills etc.) and not a great deal more.
The rate was also less by 2 or 3 Eurocents per word than what I have seen offered on the professional translation sites.
Of course I am relatively new to Elance, and I only apply for the positions where I think my skills are appropriate, and where I could do an excellent job. So the number of applications that I have made is small.
I was also a bit wary when I noted that the provider had already rejected three other applications.
Anyway I still believed that maybe this person would recognise talent when it was made available to him.
Not so - back comes some nonsense that as I had not previously done anything on Elance, I was asking for too much money.
No point continuing with any negotiations. The money that I would have made from it was essentially very basic. I am not putting myself into debt, just to prove a point - I learned that expensive lesson in the 1980s.
Eventually the struggle for recognition goes on. Shy, introverted, talented people will always have this problem, or so it seems. I would like to be persuaded otherwise, but I am not optimistic.