Alright, so let’s get to the point already!
Gathering skill such as skinning, herbalism and mining are very easy to level, and will produce sellable goods instantly. As your gathering skills improve the goods you have to sell will be more valuable as well.
- STEP 1 - Choose a skill or 2
- STEP 2 - Gather materials.
- STEP 3 - Put your materials on auction.
- STEP 4 - Get your money
Deciding which skill you want to try is mostly a personal choice. Any of the gathering skills can make money, and have various pros and cons. In WoW you can only pick 2 professions at a time. You can abandon a skill whenever you want to, but you will lose the points you have generated in it. When you are new, don't worry about it too much. Getting started is easy and you can switch if you decide that you don't like it.
You will need to be level 5 before you can train any of thee skills. To train the skill you will need to find the proper trainer. It will cost 10 copper to train these skills.
Skinning. Skinning is easy and fast. You'll need to buy a skinning knife and train the skill to get started. Once you have done these 2 things, you can skin any skinable kill. First loot the corpse dry and then right click to skin it. Only beast type (with a few exceptions) creatures can be skinned, but there are plenty of them.
Herbalism. All you need to do is train this skill to get started - no equipment needed. When the profession is trained you will receive a new skill called, "Find Herbs". When activated, herb locations will be shown on your mini-map. Once you locate an herb, right click it and you will harvest it.
Mining. Train the skill and buy a mining pick. Like herbalism, mining give you a skill called, "Find Mineral". When this skill is activated, you mine locations will be shown on your mini-map. To get started go out into the world and find a mine. Generally they are located near rocks and mountains. Each mining node can be mined up to 4 times. In addition to ore you can also find gems. The result of mining is ore. This ore can by smelted into metal at a forge using the "smelt" skill you gained when training the profession.
There is also fishing... that imho is very boring. I have never raised fishing high enough to comment on it. However I have received several comments that fishing can be extremely profitable. You may want to try it, but it is outside of my recommendations.
As you gain in skill all of these professions will allow you to find better and better materials.
As you work up your gathering skill you will become better at determining where good places to find the materials you are interested in.
Go to either Ironforge (alliance) or Orgrimmar (horde) and find the auction house. Scan the auction house for the materials you are going to be selling to get an idea of what the current prices are. Check often to get a feel for how prices rise and fall.
Once you have any idea of a reasonable price, put your materials up for sale.
Learning the art of pricing and when is the best time to put auctions up takes time, but is not difficult at all. Please considering undercutting your competition a little for faster sales.
See the tips and tools section below for some advanced help in this process.
After your auctions complete go to the mailbox and collect your money!
