Don't think in terms of offering the lowest price. When you are selling your services online, price also tells the client how much your work is worth. Never compete on price, just ask for whatever you think is fair, given your knowledge and experience. I work on oDesk, and I've always obtained well-paid work. Just a question of patience and establishing a reputation.

Getting a reputation would seem to invove doing at least a few projects at a crappy rate from what I gather.

You can start off at, say, half your target rate, and/or on smaller projects than you would usually take on. Once you have two or three decent recommendations under your belt, then your online career will take off.

You don't have any contact info in your profile. I would like to run some questions past you, if you have the time?