Croda's Inscription Gold Guides

I have two Guides available.  One free - below, 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 Free Guide

a guide that reflects my strategies, processes, experiences and observations in taking me to over 1 million gold via Inscription.

Foreword

This guide represents my experiences with the Inscription Profession that took me to over 1 million gold. It is an aggregation of the blog posts (marketsforgold) on this blog and very little, if anything, is in addition to those posts (- actually the blog posts are a disaggregation of this guide).

The guide is primarily aimed at Scribes who are at least starting their daily Research. It is not a levelling guide, it is a guide that reflects my strategies, processes, experiences and observations in taking me to over 1 million gold via Inscription.

It is free though i retain the copyright.

I will aim to update the guide on an ongoing basis. This is version 2.0 as of 17/12/11 (dd/mm/yy).

Happy reading.

Croda
@marketsforgold
http://marketsforgold.blogspot.com/



CONTENTS

1. Description

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
a.My use of addons
b.How i am set up
c.What do i stock?
d.When do i mill and craft?
e.How i price my items – glyphs
f.How i price my items – scrolls
g.How i price my items – runescrolls
h.How i price my items – certificates of ownership
i.How i price my items – darkmoon cards
j. How i price my items - off hands
k. My routine – for glyphs, darkmoon cards, scrolls, runescrolls and certificates of ownership
l.My routine – for off hands
m.My routine – for surplus inks
n.How i compete
o.How i deal with a serious new entrant
p. How i deal with an existing competitor that turns aggressive
q.What i have on my snatch list for inscription


7. Advanced Strategies
a. The starting point
b. The Glyph Wall –what is it and what is its purpose?
c. The Glyph Wall –how to combat it
d. The Auction House Camper - what is it and what is its purpose?
e. The Auction House Camper – how to combat it?
f. The Pricing Trap strategy – what is it and what is its purpose?
g. The Pricing Trap strategy – how to combat it
h. Hello there stranger! - what is it and what is its purpose?
i. Hello there stranger! - how to combat this

8. Market Observations
a. Forcing a competitor to leave the market
b. Stable markets is what every scribe wants.
c. Sales on a sustainable basis
d. Who is the Market Leader?
e. Lowing the cost of glyphs – looking at the manufacturing process
f. Sunk Costs
g. Cash Margins vs Profit Margins
h. Measuring Gold per Hour


9. General Tips for Scribes
a. Books of Glyph Mastery - a form of insurance
b. Alt Posting Location
c. A Guild Bank
d. Getting the Drop on your Competitors
e. What to do before Patches and new content
f. Podcasts i listen to
g. Post Patch work –reset your Auction House data
h. Checking for Recipes on the Auction House
i. Better safe than sorry
j. Skipping items to post
k. Checking to see what recipes you still have to collect
l. Loading out of date addons.


10 Reference Data
a. Herbs to Glyph Conversion


11. Scribe's Glossary



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




1. DESCRIPTION

Inscription is the milling of herbs into pigments which form inks and then combined with parchments, and occasionally other components, crafted into glyphs, scrolls, certificates of ownership, off hand s and various cards.You can sell the pigments, inks or the final crafted items on the Auction House (AH).

The real money making part of inscription is selling glyphs.Every character, no matter what class, will always carry their full entitlement of glyphs, and most likely carry a number of other glyphs if not all of them for their class.



2. GOLD MAKING POTENTIAL

The gold making is impressive but the competition is very intense.Inscription needs perseverance and dedication.

The cash profits and margins are impressive:On my server, it costs c15 gold to craft a glyph and the average selling price on my server is 100 gold.Sell 100 a night gives profits of 8500 gold per night.

It is a large end market: The glyphs crafted are available to all classes hence it is one of those professions which has a large target market.Each character will always purchase a minimum of nine glyphs (3 prime, 3 major and 3 minor), and most likely purchase every glyph for their character – and so you have forced buyers.Broadly, there are over 30 glyphs for each class.And there a 10 classes.

Glyphs are a capital item: Since Cataclysm once a glyph is purchased by a character, it need never be purchased again.Therefore, many people will see that as making a one-off purchase (capital item) rather than repetitive purchases (operating item) such as potions, enchants etc. People are willing to pay much more for a one-off purchase given the value into perpetuity they get from that one purchase.Indeed, glyphs maintain their use to a character through new patches, whereas other items can be made useless as new gear is introduced.

But it’s a mature market: again, since Cataclysm once a glyph is purchased by a character, it need never be purchased again.Hence the market size by volume is the number of characters on the server multiplied by the number of glyphs per class.Given cataclysm has been around since November 2010 the main driver to the market size from here are alts levelling or new players levelling – most current characters will have bought their glyphs by now.Indeed it is likely that the market size on most servers is in decline. Hence, arguably this is a mature market, most likely in decline, and therefore highly competitive.

You can’t do it half cocked: It is one of those professions where it is best to be “all in” – each server will likely have established players and the competition is fierce.For those players that are able to compete glyphs can be the best income generating profession.But for the winners there are many drop outs.

There is no shortage of raw materials: Herbs are available in abundance.Furthermore, the inks are readily available.Hence, shutting out competitors by buying up the raw materials is near impossible.

Auction House costs are negligible:Each item costs virtually nothing to list on the Auction House so cancelled or unsold auctions don't need to worry you.Again, that then lends itself to a lot of cancelling and reposting, and hence intense competition.

3. ANALYSIS OF THE MARKET


Suppliers

There are 3 sources of herbs and inks for crafting:yourself by farming the herbs and milling herbs; a (legal) farmer that you hire to farm the herbs; and the AH to buy the herbs or inks.The cheapest source is yourself though the best time / gold source is a (legal) farmer that you hire.Most of us, though, will buy herbs from the AH to mill.

Technically, there is a fourth source and that is the ability to convert one blackfallow ink into each of the main inks (or 10 for each inferno ink).Therefore, on most servers, the price of the blackfallow ink will dictate the price of the other inks – as was the case with Ink of the Sea when it was the main ink – given it is the common currency ink.

If farming is your taste (and i occasionally do it - the best farming spot of herbs is whiptail at Uldum Whiptail Hotspot as shown at Powerword:Gold. Without competition i can gather 20 stakes an hour which equates to 133 glyphs made for free and c30 inferno inks produced for free.

In all, there should be a good source of inks and herbs available to purchase and this is rarely a problem other than at patch changes which alter demand and supply.


Customers

Customers are price takers in my experience.When someone wants to buy a glyph they will take the cheapest one on offer at the AH at that time – unless it is priced off the dials (i have never had problems selling at my fall back price of 400 gold).See my opinion that glyphs are a capital item above.

Customers have two other sources for glyphs: firstly they can buy the herbs or inks themselves and seek out a scribe to craft; secondly they can seek out a scribe in their guild. In my experience, neither is a big threat to the inscription market.


Substitutes

For glyphs and certificates of ownership there is no substitute.No other item can replicate them and they don’t drop from mobs nor can they be acquired from any NPCs.Player scribes are the only source.

For off-hands, scrolls and cards there are substitutes and hence other items in the game compete against them.


Competitors

Because inscription lends itself to automation through addons the competition is intense.This is the killer in inscription.Don’t expect to put a glyph on the AH and it not to be undercut in under an hour off peak times, and in under 5 minutes on peak times.

It may look like the market is full of competitors but it is more likely there are a few hard core players with alts and then part time competitors.In any given month i will see one or perhaps two new entrants into the inscription market who will drop out after a couple of weeks, it that.

When a customer comes to the AH to buy a glyph, yours needs to be the lowest price.The customer will buy at almost any price – hence the deciding factor of the sale is whether you were the last to post that glyph in the AH.Lowering the price will not attract customers, so compete on “being there” not “on price”.


Threat of new entrants

The Barriers to entry to inscription are low.You don’t need rep, honour points, justice points, nor do you need complete any quests. In fact, you need never leave the AH in a main city to get access to all craftable items.All you need is the gold to buy the herbs to mill or ink to craft with and lots of time (2 to 3 months) to do the final research or (much) more gold to buy the Books of Glyph Mastery.

The rarity of Books of Glyph Mastery means that the profession is harder for new people to break into quickly - meaning the numbers of competitors in this market is slowly declining.

The initial outlay to stock up is low.For example, if you were to make 8 of each glyph then the initial outlay will be 33x8x10x15 = c40000 gold.

Fortunately, the barriers to exit are low as well – which is just as well given many new entrants leave when they realise how competitive the market is.



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

When Patch 4.0.1 arrived in mid October glyphs when from an average 15 gold on my server to over 150 gold, and today i am selling glyphs for an average of 100 gold.

In my mind, there were five main reasons for this:

1.Announcement of the change of glyphs in the summer of 2010: over the summer Blizzard announced that the glyph system was to be changed.At that time, glyphs were destroyed when they were swapped out – hence characters had to buy a new glyph every time they swapped one out.When the change was announced to the current system many forecast the death of glyphs.Hence, there were very few new competitors and existing competitors started to leave the market.The view was that glyph prices would collapse.Hence, when the patch arrived the number of scribes was low and indeed the scribes left had reduced their stock of glyphs.

2.Demand went through the roof and the supply was not there: When the new glyph system arrived characters went to the AH to buy up a complete set of glyphs on the first day.What glyphs were on the AH ran out very quickly.Indeed, i could not post quick enough and hence the selling prices rose rapidly.

3.Players returned to the game: on Patch 4.0.1 and generally though the Cataclysm launches old players returned and so added to the demand for the glyphs.Indeed, there were various surges of demand as new patches came and old players came back into the game.

4.Inks from 1 to 3 per glyph in October 2010: the cost of crafting tripled but more importantly the demand for herbs rose firstly due to the tripling of materials required per glyph and secondly due to the strong rise in demand.Hence, herbs started to run low and their prices rose forcing the prices of glyphs higher still.

5.Warden in summer of 2010: in the summer of 2010 Blizzard launched a program to catch and ban bots.It was very successful and overnight many bots left the game. However, their herbs remained on the AH and in their guild banks (i assume the AH posters were on different accounts to the bots though i guess Blizzard can now detect that?).Hence, whilst the bots were gone, the herbs were still hitting the AH at very cheap prices.The timing of those cheap herbs running out varied by server.On my server, it happened just at the time of Patch 4.0.1.Hence, the ongoing availability of herbs went through the floor which was a third factor pushing up the price of herbs and restricting supply to scribes trying to meet demand.Indeed, for myself, i was often in danger of being unable to meet demand on several occasions due to lack of herbs to mill.

In summary, demand rose suddenly at a time when supply was low and availability of raw materials was low.



5. LEVELLING

There are three costs to entering the market.The first cost is the gold cost of levelling.The second cost is time – and you need lots of it, to get all the glyphs it will likely take 2 to 3 months of daily cool down research.The third cost is the gold cost of stocking up initially.

To level there are various quick guides out there such as: WoW-Professions Inscription Guideand El's Inscription Guidetells all there is to know about levelling the inscription profession.

If there are sufficient herbs and inks on the AH, you can do the first part of the levelling in one sitting.

In order to learn all of the glyphs you will have to conduct both Northrend Inscription Research for 42 glyphs and Minor Inscription dailies for 64 glyphs.In all, this will take you about 54 days if you got the timing right, most likely 2 to 3 months though.

In addition there are c54 glyphs that can only be learned from Books of Glyph Mastery –with the coming of Cataclysm there are fewer and fewer of these books to be found on the Auction House as they are WotLK world drops - many times they will sell for 500g+ each - by no means a small price to pay to learn a recipe.

As an aside, if you have surplus Books of Glyph Mastery keep back a couple and flip the rest. You never know when a new glyphs will arrive that will require the book.

*NOTE* Blizzard has stated that they will be making changes to how glyphs are learned in the future. They will change it so that ALL glyphs can be learned by using research and the Books of Glyph Mastery will simply become a way to learn glyphs faster.



6. HOW I OPERATE IN THE INSCRIPTION MARKET

As ever, every server is different and there are many strategies.Below i detail my strategy and other thoughts.Whilst my strategy may not work on other servers, the thinking behind it should provide guidance.

I split the inscription market into three market areas:

·firstly there is glyphs, scrolls, cards and certificates of ownership – they lend themselves to post / undercut / repost routine through the use of addons;

·secondly there are all the off-hands – they lend themselves to posting one of each once for 48 hours;

·and thirdly there are the inks - I don’t sell the main inks, but i sell the surplus secondary inks such as dawnstar, darkflame and snowfall.However, I don’t see this as part of my gold making in inscription (see the part on My routine – for surplus inks).

If Inscription is your main income, then consider also having herbalism.It is a good back up profession in case herbs start to run dry on the AH – and gives you a good source of inferno inks.I view herbalism as an insurance against the raw materials running out.

However, I would advise against of taking herbalism is to avoid buying herbs on the AH and so have a nil cost of crafting your glyphs (excluding the parchments).The volumes of glyphs that you sell will far outweigh what you can reasonably farm unless you have plenty of time on your hands.



6a. My use of addons

Inscription is highly repetitive, high volume and highly competitive.Therefore, it lends itself well to addons, and indeed addons are a must if you want to make this a key part of your gold making.

Auctioneer: used it since day 1, i don’t honestly know what the AH looks like without it!

Tradeskillmaster: the core part of inscription.It is the addon that, after an initial setup, posts glyphs between my maximum and minimum prices, and cancels undercut glyphs.Tradeskillmaster can also now mills herbs with is Destroyer addon.

Postal: each of my toons empty 100 glyphs a time.Postal allows me to collect mails very quickly.Tradeskillmaster can now do this.

Altoholic: keeps a track of the contents of your bags, banks and guild banks across your toons.Tradeskillmaster also does this.

Friendsshare: keeps track of all your friends and sync s them across your alts.Your friends list will be filled with your competitors.

Auditor: to keep a track of the gold on your toons.

As an aside, it is worth not placing 100% reliance on one addon.Above i note that i double up on certain addons where Tradeskillmaster can now do the job.In theory, i should perhaps go through my addons and clean out any surplus.But whilst my computer can take the additional resources i chose to remain with these additional addons – you never know when one addon may no longer work.When The Shattering came along, most AH addons failed except Auctionator.I suspect many of my competitors were effectively kept out of the market for days until other addons were repaired.


6b. How i am set up

In all, i use four toons for inscription: I have my crafter who has a guild bank and sells 3 classes of glyph and a selection of the top level darkmoon cards; and I have 3 alts, two of which sell 3 classes each and the third sells one class and all the scrolls, certificates of ownership and off hands.

The crafter and the two alts that sell 3 classes each have 3 packs of endless pockets and one frostweave bag.That can handle 3 classes of glyphs each.The third alt that sells one class and all the scrolls, certificates of ownership and off hands has 2 packs of endless pockets and 2 frostweave bags – that can take care of one class of glyphs, the scrolls and certificates of ownership, and all the offhands.

Guild bank – i keep this with my crafter, easier to get hold of inks et al, avoids mailing. Holds all the inks i need plus herbs i store up during the week plus spare parchments (saves going to the vendor all the time)

Main bank – my crafters main bank holds the bags that a set of ink ready to craft a weeks supply of glyphs, and components for the off-hands.

I don’t have a bank toon – the gold is kept on each toon as it builds up.The crafter (who also buys the herbs) is self financing.

I don’t use alt banks in the inscription process other than to store surplus ink.It is a question of adding in a trip from the mailbox to the bank to swap bags vs logging onto another alt.Perhaps saves time, perhaps not.But that’s just me.

See below on how i set up my Friends list to watch the competitors.


6c. What do i stock?

I stock every glyph – which means i stock some glyphs that may never sell.But that is because i aim to own the market.I stock a minimum of 8 of each glyph.I have found that this generally serves me well for a week. I always want to end up with no less than 3 glyphs at the minimum – any less then i am missing out on sales given i post 2 at a time (see below).For glyphs that sell faster, i stock up to 20 at a time.

I stock the 20 of each of the top two levels of scrolls, 20 of each of the top two levels of runescrolls, 20 certificates of ownership, and one of each of all the offhands.

For Darkmoon Cards – I craft a batch of 6 and sell them all over a few days and then craft another batch.As the darkmoon faire gets nearer the cards tend to sell quicker.


6d. When do i mill and craft?

My crafter buys cheap herbs during the week and stores them in the guild bank.

I mill the herbs and craft new glyphs, scrolls, runescrolls and certificates once a week, normally on a Saturday morning.The whole process can take an hour, and is somewhat tedious.

For off hands – given i stock one at a time, as they are sold i craft a new one and send it to me alt at that time.

For Darkmoon Cards – I craft a batch of 8 and sell them all over a few days and then craft another batch.As the darkmoon faire gets nearer the cards tend to sell quicker.Crafting a batch of 6 to 8 gives me a good range of cards to sell.



6e. How i price my items – glyphs

Given it takes 3 inks per glyph and 2 pigments per ink, i therefore determine it takes 10 to 12 herbs per glyph (plus the parchment).If i buy the herbs from the AH at between 1 gold and 1.5 gold the cost of each glyph is 10 to 18 gold.

Given the price of inks should go no higher than that of blackfallow inks (because each blackfallow ink can be converted into a crafting ink) then the cost of each glyph is the same, no matter what level it is or what class.

I price each glyph 50 silver below the current price on the AH – this is a hangover from the old days when posting was slower and undercutting by 1 copper risked not being the cheapest glyph by the time it was posted, but i have kept this amount up since then.I don’t go below 40 gold yet.Next step would be to go down to 35 gold, but so far there is no need.At the start of cataclysm my minimum price was 80 gold.My fall back price is 400gold.Presently, i am selling each glyph (that sells) for an average of 100 gold.

For those competitors who post under 40 gold, that is fine by me.I don’t want to shut out my competitors – having stable competition where everyone is happy with the gold they make is helpful in keeping out new entrants.We all pitch in to defend our end of the market.

Furthermore, by not posting below 40 gold i speed up the time it takes to cancel and repost.

There are three price levels of glyphs:

·Those glyphs that are used to level the profession go for silver, if that – i stock them for completeness but i never get to sell any given my minimum price of 40 gold;

·Those glyphs you get without northrend research or book of glyph mastery sell for ok margins;

·The glyphs you get with northrend research or book of glyph mastery sell for the best margins.

6f. How i price my items – scrolls

Scribes can craft scrolls that have similar effects to potions and flasks.

The Scroll are: Agility; Intellect; Protection; Spirit; Stamina; and Strength. They start at level I and run through levels II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII and IX usable by character of level 1, 15, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 and 85 respectively.

The final scrolls of xxx IX give the users an increase in the relevant ability by 100 for 30 minutes and counts as a battle elixir or gives some other stat increase and counts as a guardian elixir.

They all cost 1 blackfallow ink and 2 resilient parchment to craft 5 at a time. On my server that is 6 gold for five equating to 1.2 gold per scroll.

I sell them at 10 to 15 gold each making a hefty profit.

Sales are slow but regular and i make perhaps 100 to 200 gold per week. Its a low but steady income. Every little helps.


6g. How i price my items – Runescrolls

5 runescrolls costs 5 inferno inks plus 5 resilient parchment to make.On my server, that is at least 100 gold per 5 runesrcolls, or 20 per runescroll.I sell them for a maximum of 100 gold and a minimum of 70 gold.That is what works on my server.So my profits per runescroll sold is 50 to 80 gold.Again, I suspect that i could drop the price and increase the sale rate.But this is an area i have not yet explored.


6h. How i price my items – Certificates of Ownership

1 certificate costs 2 celestial inks plus 1 common parchment to make. On my server that is c10 gold per certificate.I sell them for a maximum of 100 gold and a minimum of 20 gold.That is what works on my server.So my profits per certificate sold is 10 to 90 gold.



6i. How i price my items – Darkmoon Cards

Scribes can craft random Darkmoon Cards of Destruction which make one of a Ace to Eight of Card of Waves / the Winds / Embers / Stone. They cost 10 inferno inks + 30 volatile life + 1 resilient parchment. On my server that costs 360 gold. Or, if the inferno inks are milled as part of milling blackfallow inks then the cost is down to the 30 volatile life + 1 resilient parchment which is 210 gold.

Or free if you farm the herbs yourself, and so also farm volatile life, and mill them into blackfallow inks and get infernos as bonus.Indeed, for me an hour’s farming can get 20 stacks of whiptail (and c60 volatile life) and they mill into c120 blackfallow inks and c20 inferno inks.

The darkmoon card that is created is random and can range from a cheap popular one to an expensive rare one.

Put an entire eight cards of Ace through to Eight together creates a deck of Tsunami / Hurricane / Volcano / Earthquake which can be used by another player in the Darkmoon Faire to create a trinket of various abilities.

These cards and decks can only be created by Scribes. Either the cards or the deck can be sold on the Auction House. And they sell best at the time of the Darkmoon Faire.

My strategy here is to buy the volatile life from the Auction House in the periods between the Darkmoon Faires for under 7 gold each (during the Darkmoon Faire the volatile life cost rises significantly) and allow my stock of Inferno Inks to build up as i mill cataclysm herbs. The day before the Darkmoon Faire i will craft all the Cards i can and i aim to sell the cards for a minimum of 400 gold each during the Darkmon Faire.

i occasionally sell the Decks which i can put at least at a 30% mark up to the sum of the cards - but that is a risk. Furthermore, my cards can be sold to those buyers that are willing to take that risk to put the cards together to make a Deck to flip onwards.

Those that consistently go for less than 400 gold i send to my "discount alt" to sell at best price.

The rest go for in excess of 400 gold and a comfortable average of 1000 gold.

During the Darkmoon Faire i will regularly make sales of 30000 gold from these Cards. It is a high but lumpy income that occurs each month. Every Scribe should take part in this.



6j. How i price my items – off hands

I have a set price for every off hand, normally 200 gold for anything for a level 80 character or below. For the Rituals of the New Moon i normally price at 250 gold.

Higher prices for the new cataclysm off hands and i aim to at least double my cost – for these i am willing to put on at a very high price, say 4x the cost and undercut all the way down to 2x the cost and then i stop posting.



6k. My routine – for glyphs, darkmoon cards, scrolls, runescrolls and certificates of ownership

This is the part that lends itself to high volume and repetition.

Starting routine of the day (normally after work):

1.Log onto my first alt and firstly i cancel all my glyphs, darkmoon cards, scrolls, runescrolls and certificates of ownership on the AH.

2.I then post 2 of each glyph within my price range, 1 of each darkmoon card and 10 each scroll / runescroll / certificate of ownership

3.I post for 48 hours though in reality i am likely to pull them down completely after 24 hours.But, if i want a day off, then they are still there catching some sales.

4.I then go to the mail box and collect all the cancelled items.

5.I then move onto the next alt, cancel all its glyphs etc on the AH, post 2 / 1 / 10 of each, empty the mail box and so on.

6.My final step of the starting routine is to come back to my first poster and do a scan to see if any are undercut.If none of my competitors have come on then none (or only a few) should be undercut.Otherwise, we have a new competitor to add to the friends list.

The ongoing routine of the day:

1.I watch for competitors coming on (they are on my friends list) – normally i am levelling another alt at this point.

2.When a competitor comes on, i let them post and then when they leave i come on with my first glyph alt.

3.I rotate through my alts cancelling the undercut glyphs / cards / scrolls / runescrolls / certificates and reposting and collecting from the mail box.

4.And as usual, the final step is to go back to the first alt and scan for undercuts.If none of my competitors have come on then none (or only a few) should be undercut.Otherwise, we have a new competitor to add to the friends list.

5.Keep this up for a couple of hours – sometime i am rotating a lot, and sometimes i just repost once.Luck of the draw on the day.And of course, whilst doing this listen to a podcast!

If only a few glyphs are undercut by characters i don’t normally see then i leave them.I tend to cancel and repost when at least 5 different glyphs are undercut on an alt.


6l. My routine – for off hands

I post for 48 hours and leave them.They are not fast sellers but bring in the gold.

I have a minimum, and indeed set, price for each off hand at a very high profit.I never go below that price and i rarely go much above it. I don’t want to give the impression that a price is rising due to demand but at the same time i don’t want to take these prices down.So if a new entrant comes in and undercuts i let them have it – the sales are slow that most get discouraged.Alternatively, if a new entrant comes in at a much higher price, i will still post at my normal price.

They are nice gold earners and perhaps i sell one a day, varying from a 200 gold off-hand right up to the 1500 gold cataclysm relic.The gold to be made in inscription is from the glyphs.No point in wasting time with the low volume off-hands.



Rituals of the New Moon
A scribe can produce a random book called Rituals of the New Moon with 5 Ink of Sea + 3 Eternal Shadow + 10 Resilient Parchment. The book created is either red, white, black or grey.

The acquirer of the book is able to transform into a giant wolf for 2 minutes The colour of the wolf is determined by which book they buy: red; white; black; or grey. When transformed the user is pacified and silenced though they are able to, still do things like using or creating items.

I sell the grey book for 500 gold and the other three for 750 gold. I used to sell them for 250 and 500 gold respectively. Like all items that give me a low income I post for 48 hours. There is very little competition on my server reflecting the low demand. On my server the cost of materials is 85 gold, so thats some nice profit.

I sell one every two weeks which suggests my pricing is too high at present. I used to sell one a week at the lower prices - time to revisit those pricing levels I suspect. Every little helps.


6m. My routine – for surplus inks

My surplus inks tend to be the dawnstar, darkflame and snowfall inks.

I hold back enough to see me through enough off hands and send the rest to a fifth alt i have that is my “discount alt”.He sells surplus items such as inks, darkmoon cards that are naturally cheap, pets et al. He has a different posting and pricing strategy.I don’t see him as part of my inscription duties, posts once a day for 48 hours, and only posts when the price is right.

On my server pre-Cataclysm inks are seemingly no longer in production, and certainly the pre-Cataclysm uncommon inks are no longer in production. Levelling scribes appear to mill their own common inks in part but then resort to the Auction House for the uncommon Inks.

And thats where I come in. I have surplus snowfall, dawnstar and darkflame inks. I have plenty of the other uncommon inks but perhaps not enough to call surplus given my steady income stream in inscription offhands.

I sell my snowfall inks in batches of 2 for 49 gold per ink (98 gold a batch), the darkflame in batches of 5 for 25 gold a batch and the dawnstar also in batches of 5 for 35 gold a batch (I have loads of those two inks from pre-Cataclysm days).

The sales of my snowfall ink tends to go at 5 batches at a time (10 inks) which suggests they are being bought to make the offhands which need 5 inks and hence perhaps i should post more or in batches of 5, and likewise the other inks sell in 5 batches at a time (25 inks) though that suggests a normal scribe is just stocking up for offhands which use 5 and 6 inks respectively.

In a week I will make sales of 250 gold to 750 gold. Every little helps.


Other items which i tend not to deal in

Forged Documents - Currently these are limited in their profitability by a one day cooldown. They still provide a little bit of profit in their current state.

Mysterious Fortune Cards - The cards sell great (along with Fortune Cookies) as long as you are barking them in order to keep interest up. They are basically a form of Blizzard sanctioned in game gambling as when you turn over the card they can be sold to a vendor for anywhere from 10 silver to 5,000 gold.There is a segment of the The Power Word: Gold Podcast - Episode 006 talking about this matter

Dust of Disappearance - These can usually be made for under the cost to buy them from a vendor. At one blackfallow ink they are cheap to make and you can often sell quite a few in a day. Just be sure to list them on the AH for a price lower than the buy price from a vendor in order to sell a good number of them.



6n. How I compete

I seek to “own the market” a couple of hours a day in the market and make sure my glyphs are the lowest priced on offer (by 50 silver).

Firstly, knowing who your competitors are is key and easy to achieve.You need to determine when the post and how much competition they represent. You also need to determine when a new entrant is trying to break into the market.

1.At the very start, look to see who is posting a page of glyphs and add them to your friends list

2.As you cancel glyphs use the “show auctions” to see who is constantly under cutting you and add them to your friends list.

3.Very quickly it will become apparent which of your competitors are the same player (they log off and on after each other)

4.A few cycles of this and you should have all your competitors on your friends list and be therefore be able to detect when they log on.

5.After a while names on your friends list will never appear to be posting glyphs (left the market)

6.And new undercutters will crop up to be added to your friends list

I find there are five types of competitors:

1.There is the normal competitor who operates like me. Inscription is their main gold making profession and i will regularly meet them on the AH and compete.They form part of the market and a not normally a threat as long as no-one attempts to “up their game”.Everyone has found their place.

2.There is the occasional competitor who has all the glyphs but only comes around say once a week or so.Likely that they are moving out of the glyph market given the competition or focussing on another market. They are not a threat.

3.There is the competitor who uses the glyph market as a secondary profession, posting once a day or so and picks up the gold on and off and is happy with their lot.Most likely sticks to the profitable glyphs, will not post the full range.They are not a threat.

4.There is the new entrant that is aiming to enter the market but is discovering the competition is too intense.They don’t post often and are normally gone within a couple of weeks.They start as a threat but cease to be one.

5.And finally there is the serious new entrant who is making a real shot at entering the market.They are a threat and the established players will fight to keep their place.In my experience, once a stable glyph market is in operation, a new entrant will either displace an existing player or will fail to enter the market.The number of operators in the glyph market itself tends not to vary.

Taking time off: inscription can be a quite monotonous at times and can suck your time away from other World of Warcraft activities, or indeed real life.Hence, every so often i take a few days or a week away from the market.Allows the market to be reset and me to recharge.


Other strategies that i come across are:

1.Low fall back price: this is when a competitors fall back price will be low.In my experience, the competitor will normally reset it higher after a while when it becomes clear that buyers are willing to go higher.If not, then you need to make a decision on whether you want to undercut those glyphs or leave them to that competitor.For me, if it is happening on a few glyphs only, i let them have it.

2.Wall: this is when a seller posts say 9 of many different glyphs at a very low price.This used to be a common strategy before it took 3 inks to make glyphs and hence making glyphs more expensive to craft.If the glyphs are posted below cost then this will prove to be unsustainable and hence you may as well buy some of those glyphs to restock and let the rest be sold naturally to buyers.Eventually the seller will run out of glyphs or gold or time.Alternatively, they may be posted at a low profit.My strategy here is to undercut a few and see if the seller reposts their wall below the undercut.And then keep on undercutting and try and lead the seller towards or below cost price – the aim here to drive the seller out of the market using their own momentum.

3.Cherry picking: this is when a competitor focuses on the more profitable glyphs only (normally those that are discovered from the Northrend Research of the Books of Glyph Mastery).It has the advantage of can be done from one alt and so allow quick cancelling and reposting without cycling through alts.I treat these as normal competitors.

4.Buying out glyphs to reset the market – the aim here is to buy out all of a certain glyph and then repost at a higher level to reset the market.I am not a fan of this unless you are sure why the price became too low.The chances are that the seller will just craft more glyphs and post back at the former low prices.Can work occasionally though.

No harm in buying glyphs that are below crafting price if you need to stock up.



6o. How I deal with a serious new entrant:

There comes a time when a new competitor comes on in force.They have all the glyphs and they intend to stay.This becomes apparent as they stay on to cancel and repost as you do.

At this point i have two choices – i can let them win this battle and allow my other competitors to come and compete against this new entrant.Or i can fight back hard and mean to win.There is no halfway house here.Fighting back hard and losing will only give them confidence.

On the fighting back, it is not by posting cheaply, it is by cancelling and reposting until the other player gives up.

Hence, at this point the standard routine of cancelling undercut items, posting 2 and emptying the mail box is too slow.We need faster action.

Hence, my routine here is:

1.Cancel all glyphs on the AH and empty the mail box for all alts – so starting with no posted glyphs

2.Set the number of glyphs to post to 1

3.Post 1 of each glyph in my normal price range for all alt

4.Assuming the competitor is posting just as fast as you then . . . . .

5.. . . . go back to the first alt and cancel the undercut ones and repost again

6.Don’t empty the mail box, stay in the AH – we are looking for speed of posting here

7.Rotate through the alts again

8.You can do this 8 times (assuming you stock at least 8 of each glyph)

9.After the eighth posting, cancel the undercut ones and then empty out the mail box, and start again!

10.Occasionally rotate the order you go through the alts to put the competitor out of step

Remember, you are fighting for the market you know – the new entrant only suspects the gold that can be made.If you compete hard enough and the new entrant makes low gold (less than in other professions) they will soon give up.The market will not get bigger with more competitors.


6p. How i deal with an existing competitor that turns aggressive


During your time in the Inscription market you will at some stage experience one of your competitors taking the prices of glyphs right down. They dont undercut by 1 gold, they set their fall back price at 30 gold and undercut by a small amount taking the glyphs all the way down to cost price and below. Glyphs which normally went for 200 gold will be taken down to 25 gold almost straight away, and continue to drift down.

In my experience there are three sorts of competitors that are employing this strategy

1. a competitor that is leaving the market and therefore is dumping their crafted glyphs. They may have a time limit to sell (holidays ending) or merely be trying to get out at almost any price. These competitors keep on going until their time runs out or until they just sell out to a vendor or until they finally finish. There is not much you can do about this other than let it run its course.

2. a (normally) newish competitor that is struggling to get the sales that they targetted and therefore has decided to shake up the market and see if they can force anyone out. The aim may or may not be to reset prices higher once participants have left the market. But the ultimate aim is to increase their own sales and profits. The time taken by these competitors varies but normally ends once they realise they strategy is not delivering the higher profits. These compatitors are the main threat here.

3. a competitor that is undertaking an experiment to see what happens when the market is shaken out (this seems to happen a surprising number of times). The time taken by these competitors is normally quite short - a couple of weeks is normal - and there is not much you can do about it. Their aim is not profit motivated, more an intellectual exercise.

So, how to deal with the second type of competitor attempting to take market share to increase sales and profits?

The aim is similar to dealing with a serious new entrant which is to take their profit per glyph down to nil and if they want to a loss per glyph. This will not require posting and reposting on an almost camping basis.

Hence, my routine here is:


1. Cancel all glyphs on the AH and empty the mail box for all alts – so starting with no posted glyphs
2. Keep the number of glyphs to post at 2
3. Lower my minimum price to cost price plus 10 gold
4. Post 2 of each glyph as per normal
5. Keep this rotation up

Eventually the competitor will start posting below your minimum price. At this point, if your other competitors are taking the prices down further stand back and let them continue. Otherwise, i lower my minimum price to cost price plus 5 gold and then continue the rotation.

Eventually my minimum price will be the cost price plus the 5% Auction House deposit. I dont go any lower than this - the competitor that does will be selling their glyphs at a loss (assuming their cost price is the same as mine).

[The way they can have a lower cost price is if they farm the herbs themselves or if they employ their own farmers and pay lower gold per herb.]

I watch this competitor closely and if they stop posting i immediately reset my minimum price back to 40 gold and i find that the market prices for glyphs very quickly reset to the old higher levels.

This can go on for a long time but the end result is always the same - the competitor gives up and normally leaves the market.



6q What i have on my snatch list for inscription

1.Book of glyph mastery – if a cheap one pops up, buy it – you can keep it for later patches of flip it for 1000 gold

2.All the inks

3.All the herbs

7. Advanced Strategies

This section of the guide to deal with advanced trading strategies or more precisely how to counter them.

However, worth taking a top down view to start.


7a. The starting point

When a competitor puts a new (often aggressive) strategy into play at all times the starting point is to stand back and consider what the aim of this competitor is.

Assuming the view is that the competitor is trying to strengthen their position in the market then the end aim is almost always for that competitor to increase their profits on an ongoing basis. They key question you must answer is whether the competitor is trying to strengthen their position whilst maintaining the current market environment or whether the competitor is trying to permanently alter the current structure of the market for their benefit - i.e. by reset prices lower permenantly.

The former aim would suggest that the competitor is trying to displace an existing market participant through their aggressive actions but that the aggressive actions will eventually end once the competitor feels their aim is fulfilled or they give up.

The latter aim would suggest that the aggressive actions may become the norm or at least will not entirely cease once the competitor feels that their aim is achieved – though if the competitor gives up then the former market structure will return.

If the competitor is undertaking an action for a short term gain then it is likely that they are trying their luck with an opportunistic strategy that is designed to hoodwink market participants into making losses for the benefit of the competitor that deployed the strategy–normally over a short term.

In any event, it is very hard to devise a counter strategy without the answer to that question. Furthermore, once the competitor's strategy is identified the counter strategy is often a lot more simpler to enact.

(Alternative views may be that the competitor is leaving the market hence dumping stock or merely going through an intellectual experiment. These are often low probabilities and the best strategy is to let them run their course.)

Furthermore, market participants must be aware that when a competitor deploys a strategy then all participants will receive lower profits from the glyph market during this time. There are no free rides here and very rarely is there a silver bullet.

7b. The Glyph Wall –what is it and what is its purpose?

The primary purpose of a strategy involving a glyph wall is to ensure that the maximum price of the glyph never exceeds the price that the wall is set at.


Spotting this strategy is quite straight forward. For a number of, or all, glyphs you will see about 6 or upwards glyphs individually posted by the same competitor at the same price, which is normally below the market average for each glyph.


The size of the wall ensures that no matter what the demand at least some of each glyph will still be listed for sale 24 hours later at the wall price.


In effect the fallback price of each glyph is reset downwards and therefore reset the price of each glyph downwards. The effects of this strategy whilst it is in operation is to lower the total profits from the glyph market.


The ultimate aim of this strategy is one of two:


Firstly, it may be to permanently reset the fallback price of each glyph and therefore change the profitability of the glyph market for all participants going forwards. To achieve this aim the competitor merely needs to keep the glyph wall up. The objective is to force some players out of the glyph markets who do not wish to tolerate these lower level of profits going forwards and to keep them permanently out of the market by ensuring the glyph prices do not reset upwards.


Secondly, it may be to temporarily reset the fallback price of each glyph with the aim of forcing some market participants to leave the glyph market and therefore allow the competitor to remove the glyph wall to reset the prices upwards and so enjoy the higher profits that the removed players enjoyed previously.


In any event, the aim is to force a player out of the market and hence the competitor is likely to persist with this strategy unless counter action is taken.

7c. The Glyph Wall –how to combat it

If the glyph is above my minimum price then i continue as normal until i reach my minimum posting price, which as i write is 40 gold.


However, given the aim of the glyph wall is to force a player out of the market it is likely that the competitor will start posting the wall below your minimum posting price - indeed, if the competitor has done their research the glyph wall is likely to start below your minimum posting price anyway. The normal Glyph Wall competitor is not an Auction House Camper – that is why the Wall is used. Hence, in this case i adopt the “race to the cost strategy”.


I can’t get way from the fact that during this counter strategy profits from the glyph market are going to nil for all market participants including myself. I have known this counter strategy to go on for almost 3 solid weeks before.


The aim here is to bring all glyphs where there is a Wall down to just above cost price and let the glyph wall competitor undercut me and so make losses on each sale. Eventually they will become dispirited at crafting, posting, making a small loss and repeating time and time again.


Therefore, my strategy is:

1. i remove the 40 gold minimum posting price from my addon and lower it first to 30 gold, then 20 gold and then just above cost price.

2. I undercut by the normal 50 silver

3. Continue to post single glyphs in batches of 2

4. Cancel and repost as normal

5. But now i cancel and repost at least before i go to work and right before i go to bed

The aim is to bring the glyph prices down as fast as possible without using higher than normal undercutting amounts. I find it important to signal to the glyph wall competitor that i am a rational competitor but that i will fight hard for my market.

And of course i keep this up until the Walls are taken down – which is a signal from the glyph wall competitor that they are either leaving the market or giving up on the strategy to allow prices to be reset upwards.

In my experience, the glyph wall only works a third of the time in forcing another player totally out of the market. What i tend to find happens is that myself and another market participant will bring the glyphs down to cost price, other participants will step out of the market and the glyph wall competitor will start selling at a loss. Eventually they give up and leave. And then those other players return.




7d. The Auction House Camper - what is it and what is its purpose?


The strategy itself is not advanced but the counter can be. It is however the most common strategy that is adopted in the market and typically adopted by competitors that have plenty of time on their hands! We have all met the Auction House Camper, and indeed their strategy is needs very little description.


The primary purpose of a strategy involving Auction House camping is to ensure that as many sales as possible of glyphs, if not all, go to one player. This is achieved by undercutting all competition within minutes of them posting glyphs on the Auction House. It is the ultimate “being there at the lowest price all the time” action.


Spotting this strategy is quite straight forward. Your glyphs are consistently undercut within minutes of being posted by one competitor and their alts. And despite constantly cancelling and reposting still your glyphs are undercut within minutes. Indeed, the camper may not even cancel their own glyphs and you will see their name several times in the order book as they focus on speed of undercutting.


The constant presence of this competitor ensures that profits from the glyph market all go to this one player whilst lowering the profits to other market participants to almost nil.


The Auction House camper may not be concerned with the sales prices as long as they are above cost price – though i have met some that do have a minimum posting price. Ideally the camper would like prices to be high but recognises that this strategy is likely to force prices lower and quickly, and keep them there. It is a strategy of high volume, low price.


The ultimate aim of this strategy is one of two aims.


Firstly it is to gather all the profits from the glyph market to one player. Whilst this player is willing to lower the profit stream from the glyph market they do so in the knowledge that they are increasing their market share to compensate.


Secondly it is to force other players out of the market by signalling to them that there is a competitor that is willing to sit at their keyboard at all times at the Auction House and so deny other market participants


In any event, it is likely that the camper will persist with this strategy until they are forced out of the market or forced to cease their actions. This is not an opportunistic strategy but one with longer term aims.



7e. The Auction House Camper – how to combat it?


To beat the Auction House Camper I use their own momentum against them.


They are the hardest to beat and hence it is a battle of attrition. They have the one key resource that we all want in abundance but just don't have enough of - time. And they have loads of it! The Auction House camper will not give in so easily and therefore you need to wear down their time and gold. You need to convince them that there are easier markets to attack than yours. And this will take a while. I have been known to battle it out with a camper for over two weeks. Though the use of the word "battle" is perhaps too strong - more like i suspend making any profits in inscription and let the camper slowly die out.

Four things to do


Firstly find out when they are on: use the Undermine Journal. And find out if they operate in other markets or just one. The true Auction House Camper will focus on one market. If they also post items into other markets you have a mch better chance to force them out of yours. But the prime reason to find out when they are on is to determine the time they spend camping. Is it during the day, or night. And so you can start to get a feel as to how much time they truely can devote to this.


Secondly: find out if they camp all the time or just at the busier times. The true camper is on all day and all night. If they are just camping during the busier times then try at first to combat them using the strategy outlines above in "6o. How I deal with a serious new entrant". They may not be a true camper, merely an aggressive new entrant.


Thirdly find out where their minimum price is: the true camper will always go down to cost and often use their gold surplus to go below cost. If they have a minimum price that is sensibly above cost then again try "6o. How I deal with a serious new entrant" above as a first effort.


And then fourthly take the glyphs down to nil profits through my standard quick cycle routine below. Not worth hanging around – you know they are going to be a tough competitor hence as you compete you need to compete hard and demonstrate to the Camper that you are willing to deny them profits from their actons.


At this point the standard routine of cancelling undercut items, posting 2 and emptying the mail box is too slow. We need faster action. Hence, my routine here is:

1. Cancel all glyphs on the AH and empty the mail box for all alts – so starting with no posted glyphs

2. Set the number of glyphs to post to 1

3. Post 1 of each glyph in my normal price range for all alts

4. Assuming the competitor is posting just as fast as you then . . . . .

5. . . . . go back to the first alt and cancel the undercut ones and repost again

6. Don’t empty the mail box, stay in the AH – we are looking for speed of posting here

7. Rotate through the alts again

8. You can do this 8 times (assuming you stock at least 8 of each glyph)

9. After the eighth posting, cancel the undercut ones and then empty out the mail box, and start again!

10. Occasionally rotate the order you go through the alts to put the competitor out of step

Very quickly the glyphs will get down to cost price. Stop there. Let the Camper go lower. At this point they will be using their own momentum against themselves and making all sales at a loss. They will be taking a lot of time to craft new glyphs to sell at a loss. And so on.


They will very quickly be selling glyphs at a loss and be the sole buyer of herbs on the Auction House. And it will become tiring for them and indeed they are likely to become demoralised. It is not selling at a loss that will force the Camper to stop, it is the prospect of never selling a glyph at a profit that will. And you must keep that prospect a real possibility.

All you need do is make sure your glyphs are posted just above cost. As long as the Camper is in operation then make sure your glyphs are up at just above cost. Therefore, you need to set your minimum post price to be just above cost and you need to make sure you post even if there are cheap glyphs posted. You dont want to let the Camper reset the prices upwards and so make profits for a 12 hour stretch. Furthermore, hopefully the other market participents are doing the same as you!

And then settle down for the long battle of attrition.

7f. The Pricing Trap strategy – what is it and what is its purpose?

This is where a competitor posts 1 of each item at an ultra low price which is just above crafting cost.


The primary purpose of this strategy is to hoodwink other market participants into posting items at a lower price and so below cost price and therefore to allow the competitor adopting this strategy to pick up some items at a cheap price whilst forcing those that fell for this strategy to make a loss.


It is not a strategy that is used to force other market participants out of the market or indeed to improve one’s own market position. It is an opportunistic strategy that is adopted on occasion to take advantage of market participants that are blindly using addons without any built in safety features to their posting prices.


Spotting this strategy is primarily done by pay attention to the posting prices of your items or what the lowest posting price would be. There are two ways to do this with TradeSkillMaster.


The first way is to have the “Browse” tab open whilst TradeSkillMaster is going through your items to post. It will flick through each page quite fast but you can easily get a feel as to how the lowest price compares to the normal price for each item. Indeed, in Auctioneer you will see blue percentage numbers that are very low indicating that the lowest posted price is way below the normal average price.


The second way is to have the “show auctions” button open when you are posting your items with TradeSkillMaster. Assuming you do not have a macro that connects your mouse wheel to the posting button then you will be able to see how the lowest priced item compares to the other prices on the Auction House.






7g. The Pricing Trap strategy – how to combat it


There are two ways to combat this strategy, and the second method is fail safe.


The first method is to spot it and avoid it. Therefore this requires you not to blindly use your posting addons but to at least pay attention to what is going on in your markets. Which is no bad thing.


The second method is to always have a minimum posting price. For glyphs i have a 40 gold minimum posting price – see my post The importance of minimum pricing levels. Indeed, TradeSkillMaster will allow you to base your minimum posting price on the crafting cost – and for other markets such as enchants i base my minimum price on the crafting cost + 10% (i.e. 110% of the crafting cost). This will allow you to blindly use your addon to post – though i would still heavily advice keeping an eye on what your markets are doing!






7h. Hello there stranger! - what is it and what is its purpose?


This is where out of nowhere a new market participant that you have never seen and their alts start posting the full range of items whilst at the same time a former established market participant seemingly disappears off the face of the earth.


In fact, it is more likely that the former market participant has deleted their old posting alts and created new posting alts with new names with the intent to confuse the market.


One sign of this happening is when your Friends List no longer recognises some of your competitors just at the time when a new competitor emerges.


The primary aim of this strategy is to disguise the owner of the posting alts and therefore attempt to convince other market participants that there is a new entrant into the market whereas in fact it is an established participant – i.e. there has been no increase in participants in the market.


By using this disguise the player hopes that the other market participants will not know their typical posting times and standard strategies in use. Furthermore, the player hopes that their history in the market will be cleared – such as their stamina for competition etc and indeed the player hopes that it will take a while for the market participants to update their friends list and so give them a free run at being able to post without being noticed.


For example, if previously this player posted every day except Saturday and Wednesday then the player hopes that it will take a while before the market establishes that their new posting alts are also following this pattern. Indeed, the player hopes that all data on their prior posting alts gathered by the Undermine Journal will be lost to history.


And therefore the player hopes to temporarily strengthen their position in the market whilst the other market participants get their act together.


In addition, a player that tries this strategy once is quite likely to try again at a later time – this strategy is quite effective for a short term gain..






7i. Hello there stranger! - how to combat this


Quite simple – don’t fall for it.


If you see a new set of alts start posting having seemingly come from nowhere then add them to your friends list. You will see them pretty quickly given they will be undercutting almost all your glyphs despite you having never seen them before. Did they really do all the daily research and just start posting now? . . . . unlikely.


Secondly, where you see this is accompanied by the absence of a former competitor then assume they are the same and therefore any knowledge you had of the former competitor can be deemed relevant to this “new”competitor.


It will be worth looking up the history of the posting alts that have disappeared on the Undermine Journal to remind yourself of their posting patterns.


And it is worth noting this down for future reference. I find that a player who tries this strategy once often tries again at a later time.

8. Market Observations

This section makes observations on the glyph market i operate in though could perhaps relate to any market in World of Warcraft. The observations have come from me optimising my market operations.

8a. Forcing a competitor to leave the market

. . . . . . is not easy and indeed gets much harder the longer a market participant is around.

To truly force a competitor out of the market they must unlearn that profession. A competitor that merely no longer posts has not fully left the market. With no cost they can re-enter where they left off. A strategy that aims to force a competitor out of the market must force them to unlearn the profession.

Aggressive competitive action may force another competitor to stop posting but there is no cost to a competitor of leaving 8 of every glyph in their bags as they focus on another profession. The moment the market prices reset upwards they will be back.

However, for new entrants picking up the profession on daily research at a time are much more likely to find themselves discouraged and therefore more likely to unlearn the profession. But that is mainly because they do not know the profits that can come from Inscription. The longer serving market participants are likely to hang around and bide their time.

At the end of the day, the equation a market participant will use is comparing the time and cost to learn a new profession against the time to sit out an aggressive competitive action in their market.

The last time i really saw long term market participants leave the Inscription market was during the summer of 2010 when the glyph market changes were being debated (before autumn 2010 glyphs were destroyed when a character changed one glyph for another as opposed to today where a character only needs vanishing powder or dust of disappearance). Many thought that the glyph market would be destroyed and so unlearned the profession. See "4. What changed the prices of glyphs after Patch 4.0.1?" on why this turned out not to be the case.



8b. Stable markets is what every scribe wants.

I would rather make a steady 5000 gold per day than making 7000 gold one day, 1000 gold the next, 5000 the next etc and fighting the whole time to achieve this. Even if i found that the stable market earned slightly less than the unstable market the time i could devote to other projects whilst operating in a stable market would surely offset this.

The way i achieve this is to make my minimum prices 40 gold per glyph against a crafting cost of 12 – 15 gold.

There are plenty of my competitors who are willing to operate in the 15 to 40 gold range earning profits up to 25 gold per glyph sold (which is still a good return compared to the crafting cost of 15 gold) to generate their daily earnings from the glyph market.

By setting my minimum price at 40 gold there is one less competitor at this end of the market (i.e. i am not there) and hence my competitors have it slightly easier.

Furthermore, i find that because my competitors are happy with their daily earnings from the glyph they are less likely to camp the Auction House to squeeze every copper out from their glyphs.

That makes for a stable market. It also makes for a market where what all participants fear most is an aggressive new entrant and we all will fight hard together to prevent a new entrant destabilising our market.

almost a win win situation.


8c. Sales on a sustainable basis

. . . . . . or how rising prices can attract unwanted competition.

I would rather sell one item every 2 days for 200 gold on a sustainable basis with the market to myself than compete with others to sell the very same item every 2 days for 400 gold.

I find this is the case with the off hands such as Iron-bound Tome, Manual of Clouds and Faces of Doom. Despite selling them every 2 days as sure as night follows day, i do not put up their prices. Because doing so would attract unwanted competition.

At present my competition can see one Iron-bound Tome sold every 2 days for 200 gold and they don’t both trying to compete. But if i was to raise my prices they would notice a sale for 300 gold or 400 gold every 2 days and then they would try and enter this market.

I get 1000 gold per week from these. It may not be much but it all adds up.

When you are onto a good thing best not to try and make it a great thing, everyone wants to be onto a great thing.



8d. Who is the Market Leader?

Is it the person (and lets define person as all their ingame characters on a server) that posts the most glyphs in a day or is it the person who sells the most glyphs in a day or is it the person who posts the highest total value of glyphs in a day or is it the person who sells the highest total value of glyphs in a day?

And indeed, what advantage does being the market leader bring?

Being the market leader does not give any scale benefits– the cost to craft a glyph is the same whether you sell 1 or 100 a day, there is no volume discount on the Auction House fees.

You don’t have pricing power, indeed you are equal with all market participant as a price taker. No-one is a price maker unless they are leading the market down.

Actually, i would argue that being the market leader is not important at all in the glyph market. What is more important is being the lowest priced glyph when demand comes to the Auction House. And you don’t need to be the market leader to do that, you just need your glyph to be there and at the lowest price.

Hence, perhaps instead of posting five of every glyph two would do. I can guarantee that your sales would not fall by 60% if you reduced your glyphs from five each to two each. But your time to cancel and repost would be greatly reduced, and that is what counts here.

Going one step further, if you are the Scribe posting less volume than other market participants but making higher profits then you are doing something right. Market leader or not.


8e. Lowing the cost of glyphs – looking at the manufacturing process

Inscription has a very simple three step manufacturing process: herbs are milled (step 1) into pigments which create inks (step 2) which combine with parchment to make glyphs (step 3).

In my experience the vast supply of cataclysm herbs and the low supply of pre-catacylsm herbs on the Auction House adjusts this construction chain towards a four step process: cataclysm herbs are milled into ashen pigments (step 1) which create blackfallow inks (step 2) which are exchanged for the required inks (step 3) which combine with parchment to make glyphs (step 4).

Therefore there are three steps in this process that can give rise to a cost saving and can thus allow the Scribe to lower the cost of glyphs.

The key part, however, is making this process as automated as possible. Saving 1 gold in the 10-12 gold process cost of a glyph is not desirable if the extra time required is too high. Personally, i do not want to spend more than 10 minutes in a week attempting to make those savings.

To put this in context, if i manage to reduce the construction costs of my weekly glyphs by 50 silver and i sell 500 glyphs per week (at 100 gold) then i have made 250 gold additional profits on the normal profits of 44500 gold. Not much, but it all adds up and worth the 10 minutes. In a month that is 1000 gold.

On my server the blackfallow inks go for 5 gold each. This is my process, and it takes 1 minute a day.

Firstly, whilst all herb prices gravitate towards the cataclysm herbs there will be occasions when a lorry load of pre-cataclysm herbs are posted on the Auction House at a low value. Make sure your snatch list has all the herbs listed so you can quickly go through them looking for the cheap ones and buy them up.

Secondly, have all the pigments on your snatch list – i have no idea why, but on occasion i get to buy some pigments at very much less than half the cost of an ink.

Thirdly, have all the inks on your snatch list. There are plenty of times when the pre-catacylsm inks are going for less than 5 gold on my server and so less than the cost of the Blackfallow inks.

In summary, have all the above on your snatch list (all herbs, all pigments and all inks) and each day use your snatch list to scan the market. Takes a minute a day. And stock up on those that are going cheap in preparation for the Saturday morning milling and glyph construction hour.

As an added benefit, for those 10 minutes spent a week my awareness of the wider herb market is greatly enhanced.


8f. Sunk Costs

Many gold makers in World of Warcraft can on occasion find themselves in a situation where they have spent a large amount of gold on a project that is almost completed and then realise that the sales they will make will not cover the cost of the completed project.

Perhaps the most common example here is an alt that is almost fully levelled a profession. It is 85% complete and you realise that the market you thought was present is operating at a permanently lower level and you will never recover the cost of your power levelling.

So, what to do?

The player must realise that the gold already spent is lost forever and can not be retrieved. Therefore, it is a “sunk cost”.

Hence, the way forward from here is to determine the total investment needed to complete the project and compare that amount to the sales price of the finished item. If the sales price is higher than the gold required to complete the project then the gold should be spent. That way, at least the player recovers some of the gold already spent.


8g. Cash Margins vs Profit Margins

. . . . . . . or how accounting can disguise what really you should do.

Take this scenario:

You craft a glyph for 15 gold and sell it for 60 gold. Cash margin is 45 gold (60 – 15) and the profit margin is 75% ([60-15]/60]. Or, looking at the profit margin another way, the markup was 300% (60/15-1).

You craft an enchant for 3 gold and sell it for 18 gold. Cash margin is 15 gold (18 – 3) and the profit margin is 83% ([18-3]/18), or the markup was 500% (18/3 -1).

So, do you focus on crafting and selling the item with a profit margin of 83% (markup 500%) vs the other item with a profit margin of 75% (markup 300%) – and lets assume you can always sell the above items?

Well, i doubt any gold makers here would fall for that. Of course, you would focus on selling the glyph because it makes a 45 gold profit every time vs the enchant that makes 15 gold profit.

Worth remembering that when walking the road to serious gold in World of Warcraft. Crafting an item for 5000 gold to sell it for 8000 gold (i.e. darkmoon decks) is a better bet than crafting the item for 2 gold and selling it for 8 gold. Every time.

Assuming you research your markets and know you can make the sale, and can afford to have the capital tied up for a while, then think big.



8h. Measuring Gold per Hour

Gold Per Hour is an often quoted statistic in the gold blogging community and indeed at some point most blogs have commented on its usefulness or otherwise as a measurement.

I will make myself no exception.

The reason I would like to seek some sort of a gold making measurement with reference to time taken is that the key critical resource for most gold makers is time. Our time playing this game is limited by other World of Warcraft activities and real life.

Starting with an example lets say in an hour I gather 20 stacks of whiptails and 60 volatile life at my favourite farming spot in Uldium. The whiptail is currently selling for 1.5 gold a herb (30 gold a stack) and the volatile life for 7 gold each on the Auction House. I put it all on the Auction House and it is all sold in 9 hours giving me 1020 gold ignoring the Auction House fees. So, what is the Gold per Hour here?

Is it 1020 divided by the hour of gathering or 1020 divided by the 10 hours of gathering plus selling time? Clearly the difference is immense - 1020 vs 102 Gold per Hour.

Furthermore had I immediately returned to gathering having posted on the Auction House and repeated the gathering for an hour and posted again (and let's assume still all sold in 9 hours) after 11 hours since I first started gathering I would have received 2040 gold for 2 hours of gathering. Indicating either 1020 vs 204 Gold per Hour.

In fact if I kept on gathering and posting all day then the Gold per Hour received from the Auction House would rise to 1020. That would indicate that the correct answer is 1020 Gold per Hour but clearly the problem here is that it assumes we can make the sale on the Auction House within 9 hours of posting. And as all gold makers know that is a major uncertainty. Besides 1020 Gold per Hour, every hour, is unlikely.

And that is the key point - it is not the Gold per Hour as measured by the gathering or crafting plus the time to sell that counts, it is how consistent is this measurement as i scale up the supply to the Auction House.

Hence, i tend to look at this in two dimensions:

1) i tend to look at Gold per Week that i earn from various professions or groups of items. Using a week allows me to take into account the busier weekends, the lighter week days and indeed 168 hours of my items being on the Auction House with its variable demand and keen competition.

2) and then i look at the hours i spend each day over the week on this gold making activity - i.e. Hours per Week

clearly, i am trying to maximise Gold per Week and minimise Hours per Week.

9. General Tips for Scribes


9a. Books of Glyph Mastery - a form of insurance

All Scribes know that 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.

Also, all scribes know that the Book of Glyph Mastery 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. So, currently at least these are in very low supply.

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.In such situations it pays to have a stake of four tucked away.If only two books are required you can take advantage of the demand for the new glyph by having them learned and ready for sale immediately, and then flip the other two as the demand for the glyphs peaks which will coincide with the demand for the Books.

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.

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 300 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.

My primary aim here is to maintain a stack of four as insurance against new content placing more glyphs in the game to learn.Flipping is a bonus, not the aim.


9b. Alt posting location

A key concern of an alt posting toon is the speed of posting.I don’t want my posting alt to experience lag because of an overcrowded city. And i don’t want my posting alt to be interrupted by guild invites.And therefore the less crowed a city the better.

From an Alliance point of view Ironforge is almost deserted, at least on my server.Stormwind is too crowded and the lag can be an issue.

Starting a toon at level 1 to become a posting toon means starting near Stormwind or Ironforge. Stormwind is the quickest place to start – has direct access to the City along a road.Hence, a quick run along the road to Stormwind and then the tram to Ironforge puts all my posting toons in Ironforge.

9c. A Guild Bank

. . . . . . . is what every crafter will need if they are to enter their crafting market in a serious fashion.

One of the critical resources when entering a market with the aim to make serious gold is storage space for the raw materials.A typical stock pile will be at least two weeks of raw materials.That will allow the crafter to meet spikes in demand or cover when the raw materials run low on the Auction House.The normal bank storage will prove not to be enough. Therefore, the crafter will need to own a guild with only themselves in it for the sole purpose of storing raw materials in the guild tabs.

Each tab has 98 item slots and tabs are purchased much like bag slots in Banks.The first tab costs 100 gold, the next 250 gold, then 500 gold and so on.To buy all 6 tabs you would spend 9350 gold.

Technically, you can get 8 guild tabs but your guild needs to reach at least level 5 and, lets face it, a guild of one person used for crafting is not going to advance.

Setting up a Guild Bank.

The good news is that setting up a guild bank is very easy, quick and has a low cost (easily under 100 gold).

·Talk to the Guild Master NPC in a major city to purchase the Charter for 10 silver (see below for the names and locations – but asking a City Guard will give you the location).

·You need three other players to agree to be members of your guild to get it up and running. So, go to the starter area and ask players to sign the Charter in exchange for 10 gold.All starter players, and even new alts, will be willing to do this.Don’t be deceiving, explain that you only need their signatures and that they will be kicked from the guild when it is started.So whisper the question first, if the answer is yes then present the charter to be signed.

·Once you have the three signatures get back to the Guild Master NPC to register the guild and start it up

·Kick the signatory players and there you have your Guild.

Be aware that the players that signed your Charter can delete their character or sign another Charter and so remove their signatures from your Charter.So don’t hang around once you have your four signatures. Also, be aware that it is one signature per player – so a player’s alt cannot sign the charter.

The whole process should take less than half an hour.

The Downsides to having a Guild Bank.

·That character can not belong to another guild –so say goodbye to raiding for that character.

·It is hard to pass a guild bank to another alt –you will need a trusted friend online to allow you to pass the guild bank to them and then log on the alt to receive the guild bank.

Names and locations of the Guild Masters:

·Guild master Lysheana at the Craftsmen's Terrace in Darnassus

·Guild master Jondor Steelbrow at The Commons in Ironforge

·Guild master Aldwin Laughin at the Trade District in Stormwind

·Guild master Funaam at Trader's Tier in the Exodar

·Guild master Andrew Matthews at Dalaran Visitor Center in Dalaran

·Guild master Urtrun Clanbringer at the Valley of Strength in Orgrimmar

·Guild master Krumn in Lower Rise in Thunder Bluff

·Guild master Christopher Drakul at The Trade Quarter in Undercity

·Guild master Tandrine at the Walk of the Elders in Silvermoon

9d. Getting the Drop onyour Competitors

You can bet your bottom dollar that your competitors will have you on their friends list. and they will have all your trading alts. and you will have them and all theirs.

This is where it is very useful to have a non-trading alt. It may be an alt that crafts and sends items to your posting alts or a character that is for raiding. Eitherway, once you have posted your items you can log onto this character and make a number of observations, such as:

• which of your competitors come on after your posting rotations - these are the competitors watching you
• which of your competitors post without you noticing - these are the competitors posting from the mobile auction house
• which of your competitors come on after your other competitors have done their rotations - there are the competitors watching your other competitors!

either way, it is all information that gives you an edge over your competitors.

9e. What to do before Patches and new content

I follow fairly simple process here:

1. Make sure I am aware when Patches or Expansions are going to arrive

2. Read around the other gold blogs to determine what changes are going to be made in Inscription. I would recommend this blog, most blogs you see on my blog roll and in particular AFKCrafting

3. If the are only going to be a small number of changes then I don't do anything. The gold making opportunities are unlikely to eat into my supply of raw materials.

4. If there are likely to be major changes then I hold an extra week's supply (so from 2 weeks to 3 weeks). The third week is held in herb form, not milled into pigments or inks at this stage - no point in closing options off. You never know, the alchemists may come over the hill buying up the herbs are huge prices.

5. If the demand is such that I go through my entire supply of raw materials to craft glyphs as happened in cataclysm then I find the prices all rise more than enough to make a supernormal profit from the now inflated prices of herbs.

6. And as an emergency backup I have herbalism.


9f. Podcasts i listen to


As well as the blog roll on my blog marketsforgold.blogspot.com the gold making community in World of Warcraft is active in podcasting. 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.

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


Pure gold making


Addicited to Azeroth - inactive


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


Call to Auction – just returned after a 9 month break! Hosted by Fox Van Allen and Euripides.


The Mana Cooler - Hosted by George


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


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


Outlandish Podcast - hosted by Jeremy, Justin, Matt and Mandy


Rep Grind Radio - Hosted by Twizzle and r9sid9nt9vil from WoW According to Twizz and eviscerated.net respectively, a range of topics.


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

9g. Post Patch work –reset your Auction House data

Now that the patch is upon us prices in the Auction House will be moving quite violently. Hence, it is worth resetting the data of your Auction House addons to make sure the data used is up to date and reflects todays market conditions.


Indeed, i tend to reset my data each quarter anyway to get rid of stale data and certainly whenever patches and new expansions come along.


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!



9h. Checking for Recipes on the Auction House


Once a profession is levelled to 525 and you are working on any relevant dailies, or even before, it is always worthwhile whenever you profession character is at the Auction House to check for any available recipes that have been posted. Of course, make sure you have picked up all recipes from vendors around the world (give yourself a spare hour, pour yourself a glass of wine and start flying from vendor to vendor).


With Auctioneer this can be easily done (at least i assume you need Auctioneer – i have no idea what the Auction House looks like without Auctioneer!).


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.

9i. Better safe than sorry

There will come times, most notably at new Patches or Expansions when your favourite addon does not work until the developers update it for the new Patch or Expansion. For a gold maker than can be the difference participating in post Patch / Expansion release gold rush or merely sitting on the sidelines watching others pick up those thousands of gold.

There is a very simple way to avoid this, and at this to download at least two addons per key task. You don’t need to activate them all, just keep the second one deactivated. It will be kept updated when you scan your addons at curse as normal.


A simple 15 minutes of playing around with it to familiarise yourself with how it works will be all thats required.


And then on Patch day or new Expansion day when your main addon fails your spare addon can be activated and you are up and running making all that gold as your competitors struggle.




9j. Skipping items to post


Keep an eye on the prices of the items you are posting, even when they are posting above your minimum price (which all items will do so if you have your posting addon set up correctly!)


There are times where the cheapest glyph on the Auction House (or any item) may be a large amount lower than the normal price or indeed other glyphs posted at the time. This may not be a concerted strategy by an aggressive competitor but merely a normal player selling an item at a random low price.


In this situation don’t undercut the glyph (you don’t want to reset the market price at this level) but either don’t post at all or post higher up the undercut the other glyphs at the higher prices.


Of course, if the posted glyph is below cost then buy it!



9k. Checking to see what recipes you still have to collect


The addon Ackis Recipe List integrates into the crafting addon Advanced Trade Skill Window (and others).


When you open the crafting window for any profession there is a button called “Scan” on the top bar on the window – put there by Ackis Recipe List. Pressing this button will reveal all recipes that you still need to collect and also a summary of how many recipes you already have expressed as a percentage of all available recipes for that profession.


You can sort the recipes to collect by:


· Acquisition – which sorts the recipes to collect into the headlines Mobs, Reputation, Vendors etc which can be expanded further


· Location –which sorts the recipes to collect by area of Azeroth


· Recipes –which just lists the recipes to collect


Running your cursor over each recipe will show you the location on the map and any other relevant information (like if the vendor is Horde or Alliance!), you can click the recipe to get further information on the collection requirements.


If you do nothing else with this information then at least go and get the recipes available from vendors where you do not need reputation or a daily cool down.





9l. Loading out of date addons.

When Blizzard asks you to accept the Terms of Sale after a Patch or New Content it is likely that your addons are defaulted to not load any that are considered out of date.

You 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.

10 Reference Data


10a. Herbs to Glyph Conversion

Knowing what the crafting cost of a glyph from the herbs that they are made from is a key part of pricing your glyphs.

(using 2 ashen pigment per Blackfallow ink and 3 Blackfallow ink per glyph, to 1 decimal place)


1 Whiptail creates 0.6 Ashen Pigments therefore it takes 10.0 Whiptail per glyph


1 Twilight Jasmine creates 0.6 Ashen Pigments therefore it takes 10.0 Twilight Jasmine per glyph


1 Cinderbloom creates 0.4 Ashen Pigments therefore it takes 15.0 Cinderbloom per glyph


1 Stormvine creates 0.4 Ashen Pigments therefore it takes 15.0 Stormvine per glyph


1 Azshara's Veil creates 0.4 Ashen Pigments therefore it takes 15.0 Azshara's Veil per glyph






11 Scibe's Glossary


This section describes terms found in this guide which are commonly used on the Auction House and instantly recognised by gold makers.

Addon(s) are third party programs that can be downloaded to aid in all activities of World of Warcraft. Gold makers are no exception. See my blog post on How i Operate in the Inscription Market. I download my addons from curse.com

Alt, short for Alternative Character, are other characters a player has in operation. For gold makers they are used to carry out gold making activities such as posting items or indeed are maxed out in two further professions. It is the norm for gold makers to have several maxed out professions.

Cancel and repost, a term used by gold makers everywhere where typically an addon is used to automatically cancel items on the Auction House that are no longer the lowest price and then the addon is used to automatically repost all the items at the lowest prices.

Fall back price is the price which an item is posted if no such item already exists on the Auction House.So, for example, if i post a glyph to the Auction House and there is no glyph already posted by a competitor then it gets posted at the Fall back price of 400 gold.

Gold Cap is currently set at 1 copper below 1 million gold and is the maximum amount a single character can hold. A player can of course hold gold over several characters and therefore hold over 1 million gold.

GPH is short for Gold Per Hour and is a much critised measurement of gold making over time to compare various gold making activities.

Guild Bank is a guild that a character is the sole member of for the sole purpose of storing items or raw materials for gold making activities. Every gold maker needs one. See my post on Guild Banks and how to set them up.

Main, short for Main Character, is a players main character in World of Warcraft.

Proc, short "for procedure", is a term commonly used to refer to a special event that occurs whilst undertaking another action. For example, whilst milling cataclysm herbs there is a chance to proc some burning embers. accoring to WoWWiki The term derives from "spec proc" which is short for special proceedure.

Undercut is a term used by gold makers to describe the process of posting items at the lowest price on the Auction House by a specific amount. Typicall undercut amounts are 1 copper or 1 silver.

APPENDIX

A A bit about myself


This is a first on many levels, for me at least. My first blog and my first guide.
I have several alts on one EU server, all alliance, and all aimed at making gold.

I have 1.2m gold at time of writting and my gold making professions in order of importance are Inscription, Enchanting, Alchemy, Jewelcrafting and Tailoring.

I have all recipes for Inscription but still gaps in Enchanting Tailoring and plenty of gaps in Jewelcrafting and Alchemy given the latter two are more recent entrants to level 525 for me.

I have 3 level 85 characters that carry inscription + herbelism, Tailoring + Enchanting, Alchemy + Jewelcrafting.And 5 posting alts that move from Auction House to mail box.

I play for a couple of hours a night and perhaps more in the weekend.

I made my million with inscription and hence that is where i first intend to focus the blog.

B Why did i start gold making in World of Warcraft?

When i first started in World of Warcraft in mid 2009 i knew nothing about the Auction House, i never knew it existed. In fact i sold everything to vendors.It was a constant battle getting the gold from questing to pay for my next level of spells for my fire mage.

I knew about professions and i was an alchemist and herbalist – though that was because a friend had told me that was best for a mage – and slowlylevelling them. I did not really have a view as to what i was going to do with them other than make myself potions.

I heard the Auction House mentioned on The Instance podcast a couple of times and a friend mentioned it to me. Though when i went to the Auction House it was all rather complicated so i continued to mostly sell to vendors.I did not understand grey, green and blue items.

And then The Instance podcast mentioned the Greedy Goblin blog and the rest, as they say, is history.

This was at the time when Gevlon (Greedy Goblin Blog) was going through his Inscription business, highlighting his strategies and the thinking behind those strategies.And perhaps more importantly how he went about it and step by step guides to working with Auctioneer.I had no idea there were such things as addons.

The World of Warcraft economy caught my imagination. I immediately dropped Alchemy and started inscription. Cost about 5000 gold to get to the top level and start making money (Gevlon's blog introduced me to the concept of a Goblin does not farm their own materials – they either buy from the Auction House or employ a (legal) farmer.

I also had no idea there were gold making blogs, and, to be honest, it was perhaps not until mid 2010 that i started reading other blogs let alone listening to the podcasts.

The first 1000 gold was made, and then 5000 gold and then 10000 gold.I remember using a snatch list to find a cheap item for about 2000 gold (i think it was a hat) and selling it at a mark up of 3000. By the time 50000 gold came along i can say i was hooked.

The gold making blogs and podcasts are great fun - its not just the information on how to make gold but the thinking behind the information that can be used in so many other areas to make gold.

And now gold making is the main reason i play World of Warcraft.

Indeed, i only just recently levelled a character to 85 which is my first character that is in a real guild, not a guild bank! But he is a level 525 Jewelcrafter and Alchemist - so i suspect he will be into the gold making routine soon.



C Guide FAQs

I have had several emails that are starting to form some common themes, so i will answer those here:

Is the guide free: yes. It is found on my blog as Croda's Inscription Gold Guide

How often will it be updated: once a month feels about right

What sort level of player is this aimed at: as long as the player has started their daily inscription research then it will be of use. It will be of most use to players that do not consider themselves expert gold makers in World of Warcraft.

Is it a levelling guide: no, it refers the reader to other levelling guides. The aim of this guide is to show the reader how to make gold from Inscription.

Can i quote/copy some paragraphs to discuss: yes, that is ok as long as it is linked through to the guide on my blog.

Can i copy all of it and put it on my own site: no. Feel free to link to it though.

Will it contain information not on the blog: no. Infact, the blog though will have graphics which the guide will not otherwise it would take ages to open the guide page.

are there plans for guides on other professions: no. My core abilities lie in Inscription. I partake in other professions and Enchanting is my next biggest earner - but i would not count myself as an expert in these.