One of the most common web search is “How to gain money working online” and, sadly, most of the results to this query are all but trustworthy

However, there are indeed online jobs available, for instance there are many chances for those who like to write and want to test their skills in this field.

The first field that comes to mind is the one concerning writing blog articles, which are generally paid a given amount of money for each article or for each word.

Ghost-writers are also another possibility offered by this field: writers that offer to write books, speeches, tales and so on, under somebody else’s name.

So here is the question: “How can I sell this kind of service?”

Many authors use preexisting websites such as Textbroker, which operates in this field since 2008.

So how do these writers “market places” work?

Customers ask for an article and decide the minimum amount of word, text quality and style (informal, journalistic, review, etc). Now the article can be booked by an author that will receive a share of the total amount the user has set.

So why chose a service like this? There is one main reason, the same reason why any vendor would chose a market place to sell: the great amount of customers and possibilities offered by a website like that.

But this kind of online market also has its down size: a big demand also means a lot of supply and competition, other then the fact that profits are often limited by the share authors receive.

That’s why it would be a good idea to try and offer an independent service, creating an e-commerce and offering articles just like any other products on sale.

So how would you sell such a service? One in which customers get to decide their own parameters and pay according to them?

Required Plugin

• YITH WooCommerce Product add ons

Plugin Configuration

A common product page cannot offer a service like the one we intend to offer, since we need prices that vary according to the needs expressed by our customers.

In order to offer a variable service then, you need to use a plugin that allows you to enter additional fields and set a price for each one of them.

In this tutorial I’m going to create a “Ghostwriting Service” product that will allow customers to chose between these features:

• Article length
• Writing Style
• Review by another copywriter
• Delivery Date
• Articles Images
• Blog Entry Service
• Email of the recipient
• Layout

As you can see there are many options, but in this case it’s always best to offer a product with as many customization options as possible, so that each customer gets to buy exactly what they are after.

Let’s see how to create these variations step by step.

The first thing you should do is to create the “Ghoswriting Service” product, just like you would with any other product:

Once it’s created, this is what it’s going to look like in our store:

Now that you have your product, you should add all of the fields required to make it a customizable service for your cusomers.

Once the plugin is installed and activated, go to YITH Plugin > YITH WooCommerce Advanced Product Options and you will find two screens containing the general options of this plugin: General and Variations:

Among the many options you will find:

• The position of each added option, whether you want to place them before or after the “Add to Cart” button.
• In the “Add to cart button label” field you can insert a custom     text that will identify the customizable products in your store:

• Choose what to display, between images, title and description, to show the possible variation in the product page.

Once these options are configured the way you like, you can move to the second tab: “Variations”:

In this section you will find more settings, suche as how the tooltip of each feature will look like in the product page.

Now you can move on to the extra field you wish to add in the product page, so go to Products > YITH WooCommerce Product Add-ons > Add Group:

The first thing you need to do is decide which name you wish to assign to the group of customization rules you are creating. Since the subject is writing itself, you could call it “Writing”.

Once you picked the name, you should link it to the product (or product category) you wish to apply these variations to. So now enter the product you previously created:

Now you should create all the variations you wish to offer in your service, by clicking on Add new, which you can find at the bottom of the page you just created.

You can create all kinds of variations, as you can see in the drop down menu:

So now you are going to create the options you wish to display in the product page, one by one.

Article Length

One of the most important fields is the one that offers the chance to choose the length of the article a customer wishes to purchase. So create a “select” field and set up the choices you wish to offer, setting up a price for each variation.

Remember to enter the text that’s going to describe your option in the “Option Label” field:

And this is what it’s going to look like in the product page, once it’s saved:

Writing Style

Different articles require different writing styles, that’s why you need to pick a “select” field again and set up the Writing Style (without assigning a cost to it this time).

Remember to enter the text that’s going to describe your option in the “Option Label” field:

And that’s how this option is going to look like in your product page:

Review by another copywriter

Offering a further text review is a guarantee for quality, so create a “checkbox” field where your customers can buy this extra service.

Remember to enter the text that’s going to describe this option in the “Option Label” field:

And that’show this variation will be displayed in the product field:

Delivery date

Now create an option customers can choose the day by which the articles need to be written. To do so, create a “Date” field.

Remember to enter the text that’s going to describe your option in the “Option Label” field:

This is how this variation is going to be displayed in the product page:

Article Images

Articles often require images in them. For this, create an “Upload” field which will offer the chance to upload images directly into the product page.

Remember to enter the text that describes this option in the “Option Label” field:

And this is how this variation is going to be displayed in the product page:

Email address of the recipient

Clearly this is necessary to be able to send the article to your customer once it’s completed. To do so create a “textarea” field your customers will use to enter their email address.

Remember to enter the text that describes this option in the “Option Label” field:

And this is how this option is going to look like in the product page:

Blog entry service

Many customers may appreciate an options that allows them to upload an article directly into their blogs. To do so, create a “checkbox” that will identify this variation and add its specific price.

Remember to enter the text that describes this option in the “Option Label” field:

And this is what it’s going to look like in the product field:

In order to insert an article directly into a blog you are going to need its access data and the blog’s url. Create a “textarea” field that’s only going to be displayed once customers click on the “blog entry” checkbox.

Remember to enter the text that describes your option in the “Option Label” field:

As you can see, in order to display this option only when another one is selected, you need to enter that variation in the “Requirement” field.

And this is what it’s going to look like in the product page:

Layout

A layout service, better if saved as PDF, might be one of the most required services for a text. Create a “checkbox” option to offer this service.

Remember to enter the text that describes your option in the “Option Label” field:

And this is what this option is going to look like in the product page:

Now that you have created all of the required options, this is what your product is going to look like:

And once they have chosen all of the services they need, customers will be displayed the final price, divided between base price and extra services:

Start to sell your custom texts right now!