Croda's Inscription Gold Guide - Paid Version

I am soft launching my paid for version of the Croda’s Inscription Gold Guide.

I have two Guides available. One free, and one which can be purchased from gumroad.com - Croda's Inscription Gold Guide.

The paid version Guide has more sections, graphics and can be purchased as a pdf. See the Paid Guide FAQ

It has 100 pages with graphic illustrations to enhance the text and additional information such as a review of the Off Hand market i deal in, looking at how to minimise the cost of glyph manufacturing, how to prepare for new patches, what to do when coming back from a break, and additional general tips.

and only for $5.



The Full Contents Are:

1. DESCRIPTION OF INSCRIPTION

2. GOLD MAKING POTENTIAL

3. ANALYSIS OF THE MARKET

4. What changed the prices of glyphs after Patch 4.0.1?

5. LEVELLING

6. HOW I OPERATE IN THE INSCRIPTION MARKET
6a. My use of addons
6b. How i am set up
6c. What do i stock?
6d. When do i mill and craft?
6e. How i price my items – glyphs
6f. How i price my items – scrolls
6g. How i price my items – Runescrolls
6h. How i price my items – Certificates of Ownership
6i. How i price my items – Darkmoon Cards
6j. How i price my items – off hands
6k. My routine – for glyphs, darkmoon cards, scrolls, runescrolls and certificates of ownership
6l. My routine – for off hands
6m. My routine – for surplus inks
6n. Other items which i tend not to deal in
6o. How I compete
6p. How I deal with a serious new entrant:
6q. How i deal with an existing competitor that turns aggressive
6r. What i have on my snatch list for inscription

7. ADVANCED STRATEGIES
7a. The starting point
7b. The Glyph Wall –what is it and what is its purpose?
7c. The Glyph Wall –how to combat it
7d. The Auction House Camper - what is it and what is its purpose?
7e. The Auction House Camper – how to combat it?
7f. The Pricing Trap strategy – what is it and what is its purpose?
7g. The Pricing Trap strategy – how to combat it
7h. Hello there stranger!- what is it and what is its purpose?
7i. Hello there stranger!- how to combat this
7j. Who are my Competitors Secret Alts?
7k. Getting the Drop on your Competitors
7l. Never Buyout items to reset the price

8. THE OFF HAND MARKET
8a. An Overview of the Off Hand Market
8b. Book of Blood
8c. Lord Rottington's Pressed Wisp Book
8d. Faces of Doom
8e. Iron-Bound Tome
8f. Twilight Tome
8g. Rituals of the New Moon

9. MINIMISING THE COST OF THE MANUFACTURING PROCESS
9a. Lowering the cost of glyphs – looking at the manufacturing process
9b. Herb Prices for Scribes
9c. Ink prices for Scribes

10. MARKET OBSERVATIONS
10a. Forcing a competitor to leave the market
10b. Stable markets is what every scribe wants.
10c. Sales on a sustainable basis
10d. Who is the Market Leader?
10e. Sunk Costs
10f. Cash Margins vs Profit Margins
10g. Measuring Gold per Hour
10h. All counter strategies lower profits for a while
10i. By what amount to undercut
10j. Why have a high fallback price
10k. Do i worry if my competitors know my minimum posting price?
10l. Some Glyphs are being undercut, some are not!

11. PREPARATION FOR NEW PATCHES
11a. What to do before Patches and New Content
11b. Better safe than sorry – have backup Addons
11c. Loading out of date addons.

12. COMING BACK AFTER A BREAK

13. GENERAL TIPS FOR SCRIBES
13a. Books of Glyph Mastery - a form of insurance
13b. Casandra Downs in the Twilight Highlands
13c. Dust of Disappearance
13d. Alt posting location
13e. Setting up a Guild Bank
13f. Checking for Recipes on the Auction House
13g. Checking to see what recipes you still have to collect
13h. Podcasts i listen to
13i. Post Patch work –reset your Auction House data
13j. Better safe than sorry
13k. Skipping items to post
13l. Loading out of date addons.
13m. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie (have a backup market)

14 REFERENCE DATA
14a. Herbs to Glyph Conversion

15 SCIBE'S GLOSSARY

16 BLOGS I READ (which have been updated in the last 3 months)

APPENDIX
A A bit about myself
B Why did i start gold making in World of Warcraft?
C Guide FAQs


What are the differences to the Free Guide?

there are graphics to give added clarity to the text. For example, graphics showing what i enter into Tradeskillmaster to price my glyphs.


added new sections on:

8. THE OFF HAND MARKET
8a. An Overview of the Off Hand Market
8b. Book of Blood
8c. Lord Rottington's Pressed Wisp Book
8d. Faces of Doom
8e. Iron-Bound Tome
8f. Twilight Tome
8g. Rituals of the New Moon

9. MINIMISING THE COST OF THE MANUFACTURING PROCESS
9a. Lowering the cost of glyphs – looking at the manufacturing process
9b. Herb Prices for Scribes
9c. Ink prices for Scribes

11. PREPARATION FOR NEW PATCHES
11a. What to do before Patches and New Content
11b. Better safe than sorry – have backup Addons
11c. Loading out of date addons.
12. COMING BACK AFTER A BREAK


16 BLOGS I READ (which have been updated in the last 3 months)



and some additional information in:

7. ADVANCED STRATEGIES
7j. Who are my Competitors Secret Alts?
7k. Getting the Drop on your Competitors
7l. Never Buyout items to reset the price

10. MARKET OBSERVATIONS
10h. All counter strategies lower profits for a while
10i. By what amount to undercut
10j. Why have a high fallback price
10k. Do i worry if my competitors know my minimum posting price?
10l. Some Glyphs are being undercut, some are not!

and some additional General tips


and its a nice pdf to print out.

Selling more of Certificate of Ownership

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

I am selling more of these recently.

Perhaps hunters are coming back before Mists of Pandaria to level up and at the same time choosing to change their pets name?

The Certificate of Ownership can only be crafted by a Scribe.  It is the only thing that a Hunter can use to change their pet's name - it does not drop from a mob nor can it be bought from a vendor.  Scribes therefore are the sole supplier.
Furthermore, few Scribes bother to post these - making the supply very low.

If a Hunter wants to change the name of their pet, they are unlikely to be put off by the price of this scroll.  Therefore, the sales price need have no relevance to the cost price.  The sales price merely need not be off putting.

To craft it costs 2 celestial inks plus 1 common parchment.  On my server that is c10 gold per certificate.  The 48 hour deposit fee at the Auction House is 15 silver.

I sell them for a maximum of 100 gold and a minimum of 20 gold.  So my profits per certificate sold is 10 to 90 gold.  I post 5 at a time in singles.

When to sell inks instead of glyphs

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

My minimum price for selling glyphs is 40gold.  It takes 3 inks to make a glyph therefore i should be indifferent to sell inks at c14gold each.

However, i must consider the actions of me selling inks at this price.

Firstly, the only buyer of inks are other scribes and the only reason they would buy inks is to craft glyphs or other inscription items or to level.

I can’t slow down the levellers (the future competition) by restricting my sales of inks to Blackfallow Inks – they can merely buy those inks and convert them to their required inks.  So, by selling inks i do provide the future competition with a route to levelling.  But at least i pick up gold along the way.

The other Scribes will be buying my inks to produce items to post on the Auction House to compete with me.

Now, by selling inks at 14gold i am setting their floor price at c40gold per glyph.  Given most of my competitors are willing to take glyph prices down to 15gold my actions of selling Inks at 14gold is forcing them to reset their prices upwards and therefore forcing discipline into the market.

Another way of looking at this is that for every 3 inks my competitors buy off me i therefore can claim 40gold of each glyph they sell (i am their cost price).

I can withdraw my sales at any time.

Therefore, i am happy to sell inks at 14gold each.

My cost price per Ink is 7 gold (it takes c3.33 Whiptail per Ink) therefore my profit per Ink is 7 gold (or 21 gold per 3 inks bought = the profit per glyph sold at my minimum price of 40gold).

Farming Whiptail & the GatherMate2 Addon

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

With herbs in short supply and assuming i have a spare hour here and there then now may be the time to start gathering for myself.  In fact, i find it a useful way to spend time whilst listening to gold making podcasts.

My favourite farming spot is in Uldum.

It helps that my herbalist is a mage and so i can set my Hearthstone to Rumkahen in Uldum and then teleport to any of the main cities i need to.

As the graphic below shows, there are plenty of whiptail spawn spots nearby and using my mage i can gather 20 stacks of Whiptail per hour.  This is enough to make 40 glyphs (and c30 Inferno Inks).  The mobs are single Riverbed Crocolisks with c54k hp – and they guard about 30% of the spawn points, if that.

In all pleasurable way to pass an hour leaving enough mental ability to concentrate on the podcast going on in the background.  I sometimes find competition – but not much these days (hence the low supply of whiptail on the Auction House).

And my favourite addon is GatherMate2.  (i used to use Gatherer but GathererMate2 is lighter and updated).

As the graphic above shows it does two things.  Firstly, every time you gather a herb it marks its position on the main map.  Secondly, on the radar map it makes the spot where a herb will spawn with the green circle.  You need to gather the herb to allow the addon to record the details.

Just makes farming for herbs an ease and joy.

Quick update to the podcasts i listen to.

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

Updated as of 10^th June 2012.

As well as the blog roll on my blog marketsforgold.blogspot.com the gold making community in World of Warcraft is active in podcasting.  Times change and podcasts and blogs come and go.  And some are restarted.

Below are the podcasts i listen to as well as the non-gold making podcasts related to World of Warcraft that i also listen to.

As ever, it is not only the ideas the hosts discuss but the thinking behind the ideas that is of benefit to us all.  And they make for good listening.  Indeed, i tend to need to be doing something mundane like gathering whiptail or milling / crafting if i am listening to them.

They are in alphabetical order split between the pure gold making podcasts and the podcasts what are about the World of Warcraft in general.  For a complete list of Gold making Blogs and Podcasts see The PowerwordGold Blog Directory.


Pure gold making

Auction House Junkies - Hosted by Cold and Wes from Cold's Gold Factory and Capped by Cata, respectively

Call to Auction – hosted by Euripides and guest.

Powerword:Gold - Hosted by Fluxdada from Powerword:gold and a guest host.

The Mana Cooler - Hosted by George

Addicited to Azeroth – inactive as of October 2011


Mixture of gold making but mostly other World of Warcast

The Instance - Hosted by hosted by Scot Johnson, Dills and Turpster from Frogpants Studios, AIE Podcast and The Incredible Podcast of Amazing Awesomeness respectively

Warcraft Lounge - Hosted by Chris and Ryan, going since November 2010, range of topics and debate.

Herbs running low

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

On my server herbs are now running in short supply and the prices have moved up to 2gold a whiptail (40gold a stack) if i am lucky.  And that includes the weekend.

Two things happening here.

Firstly, demand for glyphs (and potions) has been low in the pre new content slowness hence herb farmers are absent from the market.  Thus supply of herbs is severely restricted.

Secondly, people, including myself, are slowly starting to stock up for Mist of Pandaria.  Hence, a new demand for herbs that is unrelated to the current demand for glyphs (and potions).  Indeed, i am picking up herbs of almost any type that go for 1.5gold (30 gold a stack).  Worth noting that on my server the herbs for Shimmering Ink and Jadefire Ink i can get for 1gold (20 gold a stack) quite easily.

Perhaps during the holidays i will get the chance to buy herbs cheaper.  But at the moment i am slowly building up my stocks for the new content.

I can already see the effect of holiday players when i see Northrend herbs (Ancient Lichen , Dreaming Glory, Felweed , Mana Thistle , Netherbloom , Nightmare Vine , Ragveil  and Terocone) put on the Auction House for 1gold (20 gold a stack).

The good news is that this is forcing the price of glyphs up.  Though mainly because a competitor is running short of herbs to mill.  The demand for glyphs remains unchanged and lowish.

Preparing for Mists of Pandaria

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

Its a while off but something to keep in our minds.

I rarely go into new expansions or major content updates “all in”.  I take the view that if the market starts to run short of crafted items (glyphs for us Scribes) or raw materials (herbs for us) then those who did go “all in” will make gold in the short term but pretty quickly prices will adjust upwards as their supplies run out.

It is worth remembering that many market participants will have left the market (or WoW) during the pre-new content slow down anyway so any major increase in demand will benefit all the remaining market participants.  And then add in an increase in new entrants levelling the profession keeping the cost or raw materials up and so the cost of the crafted items up and hence profits up.

Having said that, i do make some increased investment.  As a rule of thumb i at least double my inventories of inks and as we get closer to the expansion or new content i increase my holdings of the key glyphs.

So, there are some things i am doing now – but at a slow rate over time so as not to disturb the market.

Stocking up on inks:  Currently i hold 2 weeks worth of inks.  I will be increasing this.  Not thought yet to what but in the medium term i am buying cheap herbs i see on the Auction House with the view to increasing it to 4 weeks.  The holiday players are here so occasionally i am picking up herbs at cheaper than normal.

Stock up on all the inks:  I suspect there will be a new converting ink (i hear called Ink of Dreams that can be converted into any of the other common inks, much like Ink of the Sea was pre-cataclysm and Blackfallow ink is today).  Hence, i will need to make sure i have each individual ink in plentiful supply.  Non cataclysm herbs are in short supply at the best of times on my server, especially the Northrend herbs.  So making sure i have plenty of all inks is important.  To do this i am still primarily crafting Blackfallow ink to convert into those inks.

Making sure my Scribe and Herbalist are ready to level:  My Scribe (which is also my herbalist) is level 85.  His gear is not heroic level.  I may run some heroic dungeons just to get his gear up to standard.  But mostly i am done here.

Also: I suspect i will increase my fall back price from 400gold to 600gold.  No harm in doing this.  If demand takes off and the Scribes are unable to meet demand then this is a good opportunity to take more profit in the short term and reset the fall back prices in the medium term.

Getting re-started: Scanning for Cheap Recipes

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

Don’t forget this old chestnut to pick up recipes you need that have been dumped on the Auction House at a low price.

Whenever you are in the Auction House and are on a character that has levelled a profession to 525, or indeed before, it is worth taking 20 seconds to see if there are any recipes posted at low prices.

This is easily done. Open the Auction House window:

· tick “Usable Items” on the top bar of the window

· click Recipes and then select the profession you are searching

· the press Search

A list of recipes that you don’t own will appear. (if a very long list appears then it is likely you have not ticked “Usable Items”

I always buy recipes that are priced under 100 gold.


the example below shows that my the Auction House has 5 recipes that my enchanter does not have though none are below my 100 gold price.

Getting re-started: Resetting Auction House Data

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

Another observation of taking time off is that i need to reset up Auction House data to make sure i am using the most up to date prices that reflect the different market conditions to that which i was experiencing 5 months ago.  I should do this once a quarter anyway to get rid of stale data.

For Auctioneer the command is: /auc cleardata ALL

For TradeSkillMaster the command is: /tsm adbreset

And of course remember to do a complete scan the Auction House daily. Every gold maker should. Takes 10 to 15 minutes and you can be doing some housework at the same time!

Scanning the Auction House for Bargains

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

Always keep a look out for potential bargains as you go about your Auction House duties.  During the summer holidays new players, or even existing players, will put items onto the Auction House which they are not fully aware of their significance.  I have the Book of Glyph Mastery on my Snatch List.

At the weekend during a routine scan on the Auction House for potential bargains i found 3 Book of Glyph Mastery for 15gold each.

As the chart from the Undermine Journal below shows - they have been selling for an average of 370gold over the last month with no sign of a downward trend.  I suspect i will be able to turn them around for this price yielding a nice profit for 20 seconds worth of scan time.

I have already sold one for 650gold.

As  a recap on Books of Glyph Mastery, from a prior blog post:

·         Currently certain glyphs can only be learned through these Books though Blizzard announced that in the future all glyphs can be learned through daily research.

·         It is a world drop from any mob on Northrend.  However most players now operate in the newer content (i.e. Cataclysm) and hence there are not many of these on the Auction House leading to a very low supply.

·         The current demand comes from those levelling the Inscription profession.

·         However, on occasion new content arrives where these books are in demand and the prices spike as Scribes rush to take advantage of the demand for the new glyph.

My primary aim here is to maintain a stack of four as insurance against new content placing more glyphs in the game to learn.

As a secondary aim, i scan for cheap books on the Auction House and flip them as a gold making opportunity.

On my server there are normally two to four for sale on the Auction House at any one time and they currently go for about 370 gold but have been known to occasionally drop to 100 gold.  When this happens i buy that book and then assuming my current stock is at least 5 books i will repost when the price spikes to 400 gold.

For sure, Blizzard may render these Books worthless or at least allow all glyphs to be learned through daily cool downs.  For the former the books will be worth nil for the latter there will still be demand from new scribes to accelerate their learning.  Either way, a stack of 4 books is a worthwhile form of insurance.

Keeping my minimum glyph selling price at 40gold.

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

Having come back after 5 months i have noticed that the supply of herbs has gone down and indeed the price of the staple inscription herb “whiptail” has moved up from 1gold to 2gold per herb over these 5 months.

And, as the chart below from The Undermine Journal shows, Whiptail is not in great supply either.  And shows no sign of falling in price.

Hence using the assumption that it takes 10 to 12 whiptail to make a glyph (see my Reference Page) then the manufacturing cost of each glyph for me is 20 – 22 gold.  Therefore i am leaving my 40gold minimum selling price in place.  Gives me a minimum profit of 18 – 20gold per glyph sale which is a reasonable profit per unit of time spent crafting and posting.

There are 3 other players in my market at present and two of them operate below my 40gold price level.

I suspect my re-entry into the market has not disturbed it sufficiently for these participants to take counter action and therefore it appears they are happy to accept lower profits.  In fact, i suspect a weaker participant will drop out and focus on their other markets leaving 3 of us to participate.

Getting re-started: loading out of date addons

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

Part of coming back after 5 months is making sure one's once smooth running system of gold making is up and running.  And i can guarantee that will include using addons that are considered "out of date".

Hence, you will need to check that “load out of date addons” box again.

1. on the opening screen that lists your characters at the bottom left there is a button "AddOns" - click it

2. the AddOn List window will open - at the top of this window is a checkbox labels "Load out of date AddOns" - click it

3. Press "Okay" at the bottom of the window to accept and close.

its been a while, im back

for other ideas on the glyph market please follow the link to the free Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

well, got myself a beautiful girlfriend that pulled my WoW time down to nil.  So, managed to re-arrange my time and will be getting in some (not a lot) of WoW time again.

i will start by making observations of how the market has changed and what i am doing to make gold during these summer months ahead of the new release: Mists of Pandaria.