Saturday Celebrations - Noopras, Drak'thul US

Saturday Celebrations!

This week we have a short but sweet interview with Noopras of Drak'thul server who has just reached his 500,000 gold mark. Congratulations Noopras! that is a really nice milestone to reach! He has some really great advice for new gold makers too - one that I've often said myself so I hope you enjoy this weeks interview.

If you'd like to submit your own gold making Milestone Interview, instructions & more details are on my Milestone Interviews page. Any milestone is suitable - whether it be 100k or 10 million, we want to hear about YOUR story.

I've been a bit quiet round here the last week or so and it's likely to stay quiet for the next 2 weeks as well as I'm currently Stateside with no WoW access. I do have Hearthstone access though so I won't be bored! If I think of a post topic then of course I'll write it up but if you've been reading a while, you know I tend to write about what I'm doing which makes it a little tougher when I have no access!

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You can call me Noopras. I play on Drak'thul alliance. 

When did I start? 

I started about 6 months ago to try and make gold. I kept reading different blogs and guides about it and decided to see how I could do.

Did I set goals? 

Initially it was just lets see how much I can make. That actually got old pretty fast. I was making a modest amount, but with no clear direction. So at 300k I decided that I really wanted all the JC mounts. At 500k, I am short the jeweled onyx panther, but only cause I am making myself wait to hit 520k before I drop the gold on the orb. 

1st tips and tricks? 

READ A GUIDE. READ A BLOG. JUST PLAIN READ. It isn't rocket science. Lots of people have gone before you. Learn from them. Learn from your mistakes. 

When did I start a banker alt? 

Had this alt for I think 2 years. I was using him for storage and a few AH things before I got serious. I have 2 now. Both with LvL 1 guilds. 

Keep the same bank alt? 

Yep. 

Best market over time? 

I have been mostly in JC and enchanting. JC was my 1st crafting profession. It has been the driver for my gold making. I have not been deep enough in any others to really have much say on them. 

Reach your goal, set a new one? 

I will shortly. As for the next goal? I need a lot more achievements for items, so I may turn that into my next goal. 1 item every 20 k or so. 

Favorite niche market?

If you consider belt buckles niche. 

Do you farm mats? 

Ore, heck no. Herbs, 3 16 plot farms. 

Lesser known add-on? 

TSM addict.

Biggest oops? 

Not sure, really. Nothing huge springs to mind. My markets are low gold higher volume. 

Biggest yeah? 

Hitting 500k has been the biggest. The most memorable is the other AH dealer I have met. Started chatting with him and we have continued to chat. Learned some from him, also 1 less person to fight. 

Playtime to gold making? 

Well over 1/2 my time is devoted to it. Ore doesn't prospect itself, and I click ever single time I do it. 

Professions? 

Miner/herbalist 600/600, JC/BS 600/600, Alchemist(transmute)/enchanter 600/600, tailor/scribe 400ish/400ish

Flipping? 

Nope, keep falling on my face when I try. 

Vendor pets & battle pets? 

A few vendor, a few battle pets. Not really into pet battles, and I have yet to develop the patience for vendor pets. 

Advice for new gold makers? 

Read, when you have read all of one place, find another one. So many people already make gold hand over fist. Let them guide you. By all means, if you have an idea, try it. But there is so much good information out about how to make gold you are silly to not use it. 

Reward for reaching goal? 

Yep, and I cant wait to finish it off. 

Must reads? 

Undermine Journal front page. Its how I found AH Addict. Consortium WoW gold forums. SO much valuable info in guides and posts. And they are friendly too. I used to read JMTC, but I noticed the forums where getting out of date. Haven't been by in awhile, but it was one of the 1st places I visited.

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I remember clearly hitting my 500k goal - the excitement of that half way mark was almost more than the final goal to be honest! I know I was lucky in that I was making gold during early cataclysm and I think it was definitely a bit easier then. I don't know whether it was because my realm was busier or I was just so much more into it, but it certainly felt more rewarding to see all those 'sold' notifications in my mailbox!

Having said that, it's still fun to pit your wits against the server population - using your brain never gets old and apparently, it's good for you too!

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Saturday Celebrations - Sjögren, Windrunner

This week, we have a short but sweet story of success from  Sjögren of Windrunner server. She's fast approaching her gold cap and has been busy driving friends crazy with goldmaking! She also said she feels a bit dorky sending in an interview but that's what this idea is for! Send me your stories so we can all enjoy them & know that there are others out there just as dorky as we are!

 If you'd like to submit your own gold making Milestone Interview, instructions & more details are on my Milestone Interviews page. Any milestone is suitable - whether it be 100k or 10 million, we want to hear about YOUR story.

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What is your milestone amount? 

500,000 gold

What got you started making gold and when? 

I didn't start playing around with the auction house or even seriously considering making gold until a couple of months before the release of 5.4. Originally, back in Cataclysm, my husband had a few characters on my account with which he made a small fortune through various professions. Unfortunately, he no longer plays, although I still have his characters to use. Back then I was more into gearing up fresh 90's and found no joy in sitting in town trying to figure out how to make gold, and, with a comparison to real life, I was living "check by check" with the meagre gold I could scrape up from daily activities.  

Eventually I became extremely tired of being broke, especially when I saw a cool new pet or something, so I went with my husband's methods of goldmaking and earned a couple hundred thousand in a few months' time - nothing serious. I stopped making gold a few weeks pre-5.4 so I once again was broke, which made me all the more determined once the patch came. With the surge of activity from new content, I earned approximately 650,000+ in 23 days after starting from a measly 5k.

Which markets have you concentrated on, if any? 

I've mostly concentrated on the gem market, although in the past couple of weeks I've began expanding into everything I can get my grubby paws on. Our economy is slowly dying, so a girl has to adapt and expand, sooner than later. 

Biggest successes or biggest failures? 

My biggest success with goldmaking was definitely everything I do concerning gems. Although I do profit off other items/professions, the large bulk of my gold comes from gems and I'm sure this will be the case for the foreseeable future. My failures usually come from when I don't take the time to check the math with my auctions... there have been times I've lost money selling something. 

Advice for new goldmakers?

Find the market that works for you, based on what you find enjoyable (I can't farm, I just can't, so I spend money on buying raw mats). Don't be discouraged if it seems like you aren't making much. Take some risks but don't go crazy - you never know, it may pay off big time in the end. 

Shout outs for any blogs, podcasts, or streams that helped you along the way? 

Nope! Truthfully I've never used a gold-making guide. But... could I give a shout out to my husband? He got me started after all... :) 

What's your new goal, if any? 

Hitting gold-cap of course! I promised friends (and enemies), both of which have come with complaints about how many times they've been undercut, I would calm down once I got my dream mount - a Swift Spectral Tiger. 

- Eden, Sjögren - Windrunner

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Wow! All I can say is well done Eden! I don't think I've ever made that much gold so quickly even at the height of my gold making efforts. My server is almost dead in many respects too but the AH keeps plodding on! I'm really looking forward to Connected Realms in the hope of them revitalising Auction Houses everywhere!

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Hearthstone Beta Key Giveaway on AH Addict

You may have heard of this new Blizzard game called Hearthstone which is in closed Beta right now. I was lucky enough to be given a Hearthstone Beta Key early on but I've managed to get my sticky little paws on another one and as it's almost time for a 1st Birthday giveaway on my other blog - She Rides Dragons, I thought I'd pass on my own good luck & offer it to one of my loyal readers here or on my Dragons blog.

I can't believe it's be a full year already since my baby non-goldmaking blog was born. If you haven't popped over there for a peak, you're missing all my non-goldmaking adventure stories you know! I'm currently attempting to participate in the Alt Appreciation weeks but I'm slowly lagging behind. I keep my to-do lists over there as well & of course my pet battle stuff and anything else I fancy waffling on talking about.

My current addiction is Hearthstone and I have to say that at first I wasn't overly impressed. I've played Magic the Gathering for a few months now (thanks to Cold of Cold's Gold Factory for that addiction!) & Hearthstone just didn't seem as good - at first. But beware! There is still something very addictive about Hearthstone - whether it's the quicker games or the simpler interface, I don't know but I am definitely hooked!

So what do you have to do to get a chance at this Hearthstone Beta Key Giveaway then?

I thought I'd spread the love & give you several chances at it so all you have to do is:-

• be signed up for my newsletter (existing subscribers already included). Don't forget to click the confirmation email too otherwise you don't show up on my list management tool!

or

• follow me on Twitter @nevahaddict and retweet this post announcement (existing followers already included)

or

• share this post on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest or Stumbleupon using  #AHAGiveaway so I can track the shares

I'll be Stateside for Halloween and as She Rides Dragons is officially 1 year old on 1st November, I'm going to close entries at midnight 31st October, Eastern Standard Time (that's about 5am UK or 6-7am EU on 1st Nov).

I'll do an announcement post for Friday 1st November so the winner should have their Hearthstone Beta Key in time for the weekend! Good luck!

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Episode 15 Journal of Marcus Ty Podcast - Noodle Carts!

Fishing Boats in Zante

In a show full of giggles (from me) & corny jokes (from Marcus) we tried to cover the secondary professions this week. We talked about our week in WoW and some of the problems we've been having - Marcus finally found his Albatross but is still chasing his Noodle Cart and I can't use a glider to save my life! 

News from the Front is all about Connected Realms and Marcus got all techie, a bit of Blizzcon and the London Meet-up. Next we dived into cooking, fishing and archaeology - the whys and hows of making gold with secondary professions is one of the lesser talked about methods and we completely skipped First Aid. 

Marcus sidelined me a bit with his Alchemy section and then went all Alcheologist on me too! But I got my own back when I remembered the Pilgrims Festival right at the last minute and made him late for his lunch date with his wife! Oops!

We had great fun recording & I hope you enjoy listening too. If you have anything you'd like us to talk about or you want to add something, feel free to contact either of us, email & twitter details are below. We'd love to hear from you and of course, if you like us enough, we'd love some iTunes reviews or Stitcher thumbs ups too!

As always - you can find us on iTunes or Stitcher Radio or you can listen via the website if you prefer.

Show Notes

• Noodles, Noodles!
• Our week in WoW - troubles with transport!
• News from the front - Connected Realms, Blizzcon & the London Meet-up
• The Endless Grind of the Timeless Isle
• Why level the secondary professions?
• Making Gold From Cooking and Fishing
• Archeology love it or hate it
• Markets of the week.

Resources mentioned in the podcast:

• Contact Marcus Ty on Twitter @MarcusTy
• Contact Nev on Twitter @NevAHaddict
• Marcus's Blog WoW Gold Journal
• Nev’s Milestone Interviews
• Nev’s Iron Paw Shuffle
• London Meet-up
• Email Marcus at JournalofMarcusTy.com

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What's Been Selling This Week? 14th October Edition

After the disgraceful showing in my last weekly report, I knuckled down & got my crafters working again and as expected, my sales this week reflect exactly that! It just shows though that you can make some gold every week just by logging in and listing stuff. The point is to craft a bunch of stuff at one time so you don't have to craft every day. That's only if you want to tone down your goldmaking time of course! Otherwise the opposite is true - the more regularly you craft & list, it seems the more gold you make - I'm not saying bulk craft every day - that just isn't efficient but certainly restock on the fastest selling items. That's just common sense!

So as you can see from the first screenshot - I found myself a great deal on Borean Leather & got to work making Mammoth Mining Bags - I have about 30 in the Guild Bank now so I won't have to craft those for a while.

Mysterious Fortune Cards - yup - they are still selling & I'm still not barking them! I list about 20 singles, 10 x 5stack & 5 x10 stacks and just top up as and when. I list them for between 14 - 16 gold each when I don't have any competition and will go as low as 10 gold each when there is competition. You may remember I bought 1500 or so for 5g each a while back - I'm still selling my way through those but I knew it would take a while to recoup my investment.

It looks like people are getting bored with the Timeless Isle already and PvP crafted armor sales have improved dramatically. It probably helps that I've dropped my prices - not so much profit per item but with Exotic Leather so easily & cheaply available now, the 1000 gold plus prices felt like gouging & judging by the sales, PvP'ers either felt the same or couldn't afford those prices!

The tailored PvP items are also selling but again, prices are nowhere near what I think we'd all been hoping for. Having picked up most of my Windwool Cloth at around 1gold each though, even the 8 bolt PvP items still only have a crafting cost around 40gold so selling at 200gold or more is still a nice profit!

This week, for a change, I've included a screenshot of page 2 of the My Sales summary. Mike wrote in to ask what other stuff was selling at lower prices as he doesn't have a maxed character/profession yet. I'm not sure how much help this is Mike, but you can see that some of the 2nd page items are flips and some are lower level items. The level 83 & 84 Green armor market is still moving - I buy almost anything at around 25-30 gold and sell level 83 pieces for 175g and level 84 items for around 199g. Avoid the crafted items though - they just don't sell or have such good stats on them.

I dived back into the cut gems market this week too but I badly miscalculated my stock pile of gems pre-patch so I'm having to watch the prices like a hawk - I have plenty of Ore to prospect but I really don't want so many Common gems. I'm watching the Golden Lotus prices at the moment & transmuting Commons to Rares if the prices are right. The supply of uncut Rares is pretty low on my server at the moment with the Uncut gems selling for higher prices than many of the Cuts so I made an investment and bought out 90% of the Golden Lotus market so I have plenty to transmute. I'll let you know how that goes!

A few other bits and pieces moved this week too - the Hypnotic Dust seems to sell slowly but almost always for a great price. I've made a note to myself to look deeper at that - maybe buy up cheap greens to disenchant or look for cheap Cataclysm gems to make jewellry to disenchant. I thought I'd seen the last of those days!

Anyway, that's enough waffling from me - I think you get the picture though - a little bit of time & attention has tripled my sales this week from last week (I know, still not that amazing but it's a dying server!) - actually having the right stuff to sell makes all the difference so be casual, be a bit lazy if you want to but don't forget to do some work on your goldmaking!

Have a great week everyone - may the gold roll in for you all xxx

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Saturday Celebrations - Eevaine, Dreadmaul-Oceanic (Horde)

It's that time of week again - time to celebrate with another successful gold maker far across the seas this time - Eevaine of the Dreadmaul-Oceanic server. Eevaine mentions making gold makers cringe & I have to admit, cringe I did! I just cannot imagine doing that! (You'll have to read on to find out what! :P)

If you'd like to submit your own gold making Milestone Interview, instructions & more details are on my Milestone Interviews page. Any milestone is suitable - whether it be 100k or 10 million, we want to hear about YOUR story.

I've had quite a few more submissions in now so this crazy idea of mine seems like it will run a while longer yet and if I get too many in, I'll probably post more than 1 a week. It just doesn't seem fair to make you all wait weeks to see your interview published!

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Hello,
I am an average progression raider and average gold-maker. My game time is split between raiding, farming, and gold-making. I'd like to take this opportunity to share a quick story that I imagine will make a lot of gold-makers cringe: 

I made it my goal to make one million gold without any auctioning addons.

Just so you can fully appreciate the pain of this, when Blizzard introduced transmog to the game at the end of Cata I was all over it. I was on Wowhead looking up where items dropped from and then I was out farming them for hours and days. Naturally I picked up duplicates, items I'd personally never mog, and other valuables. 150+ auctions of transmog items listed by hand. And I had a competitor. So that was 100+ auctions cancelled and reposted by hand. 

I sold all of the popular gem cuts two at a time with three big comepetitors and other dabblers. I recut them as soon as they sold. When I ran out, I went out to Tol Barad and did mining circuits whether my faction owned it or not. 

I sold flasks and Fortune Cookies often faster than I could ever hope to replenish them. And I sold fish. 

About six months later I hit my goal. I celebrated by downloading TSM and promptly setting it up SO THAT I WOULD NEVER HAVE TO LIST HUNDREDS OF TRANSMOG ITEMS BY HAND AGAIN. 

I began gold-making simply because I became frustrated one day that I only ever seemed to have a stagnant 30k. MoP wasn't far around the corner. When it came out, I wanted to be able to afford anything I wanted that came up on BMAH. And I have accomplished just that. I have bought a Plagued Proto (330k), an Onyxian Drake (380k), a Blue proto (50k), a Dragon Kite (100k), and various heroic pieces for myself and friends (~900k). Other hefty purchases include MoP trinkets at the start of the expansion (3 at 100k each) and a lovely Ghastly Charger for 400k. 

Currently, I make 10-20k a day, have a gold total of 1.6 million, and have spent... quite a lot. I work mainly with the raiders' market - selling gems, enchants, shoulder enchants, leg enchants, scopes, flasks, pots, belt buckles. Occasionally I sell bags and battle pets. And I am of course still selling transmog items. 

If I can make gold, surely anyone can. I just needed to understand a couple things first: don't undercut by a lot (1c is all that's necessary) and if it isn't selling it's most likely not because the price is too high, it is because you are undercut. 

My two current goals are to own a Corrupted Hippogryph (never any on my server's AH) and to goldcap Invincible on BMAH for my husband the day it comes up. 

Thanks to Shiftwarloc, who was my first goldmaking friend (I'm sorry for trolling you with the "I farm my own goods so I have no crafting cost lololol"), and Nev for having a friendly writing voice and creating this opportunity for those of us who don't have blogs. 

Eevaine the Undying
Holy/Shadow Priest
Dreadmaul-Oceanic (Horde) 

Update
I am happy to report that while a Corrupted Hippogryph still hasn't been on my AH in ages, someone popped up in trade yesterday selling one. Usually they're level ones from a website selling for real monies, but a quick shift-click showed me this seller was level 90. I immediately offered him 200k for it and am now the happy owner of a Corrupted Hippo. Just Invincible left now.

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Eevaine - thank you so much for your submission & you're right! It will make goldmakers everywhere cringe but it's also great to hear that it is possible to make a Million without using any addons! I got Auctioneer very early on in my WoW days purely because the standard AH interface was horrible. I still posted by hand though - it didn't have the auto-post function that TSM has.

I'm so pleased you finally got your Corrupted Hippogryph too - let us know when you get Invincible ok?

It's scary to think just how much gold-making has changed in the last 3 years, you young padawans just don't know how good you have it now! I'm just joking though - learning something new is always difficult, no matter how much us old-timers tell you it's easier these days. Should I add "get off my lawn" here?? lol

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What's Been Selling This Week? (Or Not!)

Chocolates to Cheer Me Up!

So what's been selling this last week - not much at all, if I'm honest! I feel I should be ashamed to show you my screenshot this week but hey, it is just a game after all! With the wipe on the Hearthstone Beta last week, I've found myself sucked into that big time - re-leveling all my decks to 10 and using some of the gold to actually try my hand at arena for new packs. I think I've managed to win 3 games in all my arena attemps so I have a lot to learn about deck building, that's for sure!

I haven't really been paying attention in WoW - just relisting what I have in my bags & slowly emptying the junk out of my overflowing Guild Bank.I have kept up with some of my profession cooldowns but not all of them - mainly the Engineering one because I really want the Sky Golem - I'm still days behind the curve though - the Sky Golems should be hitting the EU Auction Houses tomorrow I think & I have only 15 or so Jard's Peculiar Energy Sources so I still have 15 more to make :(

As you can see from my screenshot, the Darkmoon Faire is in town & the Treatise on Strategy was a random find in my guild bank - just as well really, given how bad the rest of my sales have been! I promised myself I'd do better this week too but it's now Wednesday & I'm only just doing a post I normally do on Mondays - can you guess what next weeks screen shot will look like? lol

I am going to try & do some crafting tonight though which should help a bit. I haven't been buying materials either but as I did stockpile a fair bit before patch 5.4, that shouldn't be too much of a problem. The Timeless Isle quickly lost it's appeal for me - I only go there to skin now but Exotic Leather is so cheap on the Auction House, it's almost easier to just buy what I need!

Having said all that & having seemingly lost the will to play much right now, I did have an idea for a mini project that might help. I'm going to start it & see if I can drum up some enthusiasm in myself before I publicize it though - I really don't want to get 3 or 4 days in & decide it was a terrible idea!

I guess it's time to dig the alts out and have a look at all the stuff I missed whilst rushing to level 90 on my Main. There's bound to be some gold making along the way too though, isn't there?

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Saturday Celebrations - Just Mark

Celebrate!

This is the 2nd Milestone Interview and I'd like to thank everyone who's sent them in so far. We have a few really interesting posts to look forward to and this week, we have Mark's story. He didn't include character or server details so it's just Mark :)

If you'd like to submit your own gold making Milestone Interview, instructions & more details are on my Milestone Interviews page. Any milestone is suitable - whether it be 100k or 10 million, we want to hear about YOUR story.

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Milestone amount?

250,000 

What got you started on making gold and when?

I got started making gold a couple of years ago. I’d been playing WoW for a few years and was starting to get bored with the game. I like questing and doing a lot of things solo. I tried doing some LFD but found most of the groups either were in a race to get it finished or very selfish. That’s why I don’t do raids or dungeons except in guild groups or with some guildies. I was noticing however that there were people barking in trade for items for a lot of gold. I mean who would spend 20k on a mount? My level 85 only had 15k and I was very careful with my gold. 

So that peaked my interest and I was starting to follow (lurk) the Gold Queen and she announced on her blog about a gold run that Jonathan was doing and it was going to cost some real money to get involved but I figured that for 30 days getting that much instruction (30 days of videos) and concentrating on doing nothing but making gold would be worth it. That is where I really learned how to make gold I didn’t win of course but I did respectfully well. 21,000 gold in 30 days starting on a new server with a level 1 toon and not being part of any guild. 

Which markets have you concentrated on, if any?

I haven’t really concentrated on any specific ones, but I craft and my goldmaker that reached 250k is a blacksmith. So I’ve been concentrating lately on the PvP gear (which I don’t PvP so I’m not sure if I’m getting the right gear out there but I make everything) and what pushed me over the 250k mark was one of the Reborn weapons. Otherwise I put up everything that I get in questing that I can’t use on the AH and I’m very patient. 

Biggest successes or biggest failures?

My biggest success is just the change in mental attitude toward what an item is worth. I learned that an item that can be purchased from a vendor for silver can be flipped on the AH for 50g. 

My biggest failure I think came when Chaos Orbs began to be able to be traded. They were going for around 400-500g each on my server and I saw a stack being sold for 100g each. That’s a good deal! I bought it and then the market price went down to about 50g each. I lost about 1 or 2k and I know there are others out there with bigger losses but for me, only having around 30k that was a big loss. 

Advice for new goldmakers?

Check The Undermine Journal for items and on their front page is a blog roll. Read those blogs they will have nuggets of advice that you can learn from. 

Don’t sell things straight to vendor unless it’s grey and even then there are some grey items that people will buy because of transmog those are mainly armor pieces. If you’re not sure check The Undermine Journal and see if it’s been sold on the AH on your server if so then you might be safe to sell it on the AH. 

Find a market and then fill it’s need. Be patient sometimes things don’t sell in a couple of days. 

Shout outs to any blogs, podcasts or streams that helped along the way?

Auction House Addict, the Gold Queen (now retired), Just My Two Copper, Hayden Hawk, The Goldrun (which really got me started), all the fine blogs that come across The Undermine Journal. 

What’s my new goal, if any?

I was thinking that 500k should be my next goal but that seems so far away at this point that I’ll make my next goal 300k. My ultimate goal is to reach gold cap, but I need smaller goals to reach my bigger goals.

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So there you go - another gold making Milestone Interview for your reading pleasure! The thing I like most about these kinds of interviews is just how different we all are. There are the basic methods for making gold, sure but what we do with that knowledge & how we adapt it for our own servers or playstyle is what makes every story different.

I have 2 more Interviews submitted but I know there are more of you out there - come on, tell us a little bit about your methods, your style & most important of all - your successes! We want to read about them & buy you a beer too! 

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The Marcus Expanse! - Ep 14 Journal of Marcus Ty Podcast

This episode was a little off the cuff as life hasn't been playing nice with us but we had a lot of fun, talking about our latest adventures on the Timeless Isle and what we've been up to in the Auction House.We're already thinking & talking about making gold in the lull until the next patch or expansion.

Learn how to cross the Marcus Expanse (and what it is!) and have a giggle at our expense with our failures in game and how sad I am for New Year's Eve. I also explain why I'm only taking one alt to the Timeless Isle for now and Marcus called me lazy!

As usual, you can find the show on iTunes or Stitcher radio or if you prefer, you can play it directly from Marcus's website

Show Notes - Episode 14 Journal of Marcus Ty

• Welcome to the Pig & Whistle, Stormwind.
• Our week in WoW - real life can suck!
• I launch my Milestone Interviews (Saturday Celebrations - 2nd one tomorrow!)
• No fly-zone on the Timeless Isle
• Hints and tips when questing on the Timeless Isle.
• News from the front
• The EU Hearthstone Beta - I got lucky!
• Auction House Armageddon - Marcus is looking forward to Connected Realms!
• Making gold in the quiet times
• Markets of the week.

Resources mentioned in the podcast:

• Contact Marcus Ty on Twitter @MarcusTy
• Contact Nev on Twitter @NevAHaddict
• Marcus's Blog - Wow Gold Journal
• Nev’s Milestone Interviews
• Email: Marcus at JournalofMarcusTy.com

If you don't know, Marcus has written a very extensive gold guide and is working on updating it all the time. I've been an affiliate of his for a long while now as I believe it is one of the best gold making guides out there. You can get more details at his Auction House Secrets site. It's not for experienced gold makers of course but if you're just starting out, you will find it very helpful and there's a 60 day money back guarantee too!

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Nev's New Project & What's Been Selling This Week?

What's Been Selling This Week?

It's been an okay week in sales for me this week. I've been kind of busy on a new project so I've not really spent much time crafting new stuff to sell. This impacts my sales figures as I'm now selling the leftovers from last week effectively! But having said that, I am still selling stuff and as you can see from the screenshot of My Sales, the new crafted PvP gear is starting to sell at last!

Some of the prices are really rather nice too! I've been listing most at 1500 gold but as the market starts to get competition, I've had to drop prices on some items. I made a booboo somewhere too - listing those Greaves of Alacrity at 300 gold? Bah!

I've not been prospecting or milling herbs either so my gem sales are down as are my Shoulder Inscription sales. As I've avoiding the glyph market, milling to get Starlight Ink is a pain! I'm drowning in Ink of Dreams so I decided to try selling some - that worked quite nicely and at a profit too so I've listed some more tonight - in 5's though. Anyone who needs 3 inks to get a glyph made has to buy the 2 extras - sneaky huh?

As expected, the Living Steel Belt Buckles have held their price nicely - I'm hanging onto some of my Living Steel though - the price of that has shot up as has the price of Ghost Iron Ore so before I sell it all via Belt Buckles, I want to double check my stock & make sure I have enough for my Sky Golem mount!

Mysterious Fortune Cards are still selling too although they've slowed down a bit too - competitor is coming and going so I have to time my listing right! Just as I logged off this evening though, he was barking his MFC's and mine were selling! When I checked, he's listed all his in stacks of 10 so I just listed 50 singles to bury his stacks. Obviously that only works for me when people without addons go shopping but you'd be surprised how often that does work!

Gifts for Gamers and Geeks

I mentioned my new project earlier so I guess I'd better tell you about it huh? I've started yet another blog but this time, it's a more commercial one. I've partnered up with Cold of Cold's Gold Factory to produce a Gifts for Gamers and Geeks blog, based on his weekly Gifts for Gamers posts. We're just getting started but his experience with Amazon & the gifts posts is really useful and I make it look pretty and do all the chatty stuff on Facebook.

I've always resisted putting too much sales stuff here on AH Addict but I do need to make a few extra pennies here & there if I can so fingers crossed, this is one way to do it! If you want to follow us on Twitter you can @GeekyGiftIdeas or even better, follow our Facebook page at Gifts For Gamers And Geeks and let us know what you'd like to see in future posts. With Halloween & Christmas coming up, let us do all the hard work digging out the cool stuff for you :)

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Saturday Celebrations - Zen of Galakrond US

Nothing says Celebration! quite like fireworks

Today we have our very first Milestone Interview with Zen of Galakrond-US. He took my suggestion to answer the 20 Days of Gold Making questions as the basis for his interview and you can read more of his WoW stuff on his blog over at Zens World of Warcraft.

If you'd like to submit your own gold making Milestone Interview, instructions & more details are on my Milestone Interviews page.  Any milestone is suitable - whether it be 100k or 10 million, we want to hear about YOUR story.

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Hey Nev,

My name is Jon and I live in Louisiana, USA. I play on the Galakrond–US server and I go by Zen in game as all of my toon names start with Zen, except my bank alts which are females with their own unique names.

The 20 Days of Gold Making Questions answered:

1. When did you start making gold & what triggered it?I started trying to make gold in mid-November 2011 after realizing that there were a number of expensive in game items I wanted to purchase from vendors or from others players on the AH. I didn’t have the gold to afford those items and didn’t want to spend all my game time grinding mobs for gold. There had to be a better way. After doing a lot of research and reading I created my 1st bank alt and with 2,500 gold I went to work.

2. If you set yourself a goal, what was your goal & at what point did you set it?I really didn’t have a set goal at the beginning other than to try make as much gold as I could and try not to spend any of it until I had enough to buy something big that I wanted. I think my first big purchase was the Traveler's Tundra Mammoth which cost 20,000 Gold at the time I bought it if I remember correctly.

3. What were the first techniques/tricks/tips you used when starting out?The first tips and tricks I used was to create a bank alt to use for all transactions and to keep my Gold Making gold separate from my Main toons questing and mob treasure gold (very important). I read a lot about bank alts and I am so convinced it is a must have for making gold that I wrote about how to make one and how to use one on my website. The other big tip would be to install auction house add-ons; another subject I address on my site.

4. Do you use a banker alt/guild? When did you start doing that & why? I created my bank alt in November 2011 as one of my first steps when I started to get serious about making gold

5. Do you keep the same banker alt or do you change them up occasionally? Why?I still have my original bank alt and she is still hard at work. I have subsequently created a number of other bank alts over the years to serve other gold making activities. I currently have 4 bank alts, 2 very active and 2 semi active.

6. Which market has made you the most gold over the years?I have primarily worked in two areas: Glyphs and flipping items on the AH, which has been mostly Transmog items since they introduced that feature to WoW. I’ve made a lot of gold flipping Transmog gear.

7. If you were starting over again (maybe on a new server perhaps), how would you start building some capital & what goal would you set yourself?If I was to start over on another server from scratch I’d do the same thing I did here except that I probably would try a different profession to use for making gold maybe jewel crafting instead of inscription. Although I wouldn’t look forward to leveling another toon to 90 and another profession to 600. Too time consuming.

8. Thinking back to day 2, did you ever reach your goal or are you still working towards it? If you reached it - have you set yourself a new one?After reaching my first goal, which you could probably say was buying that Traveler’s Tundra Mammoth, I wanted to make back all the gold I just spent on it (felt kinda guilty lol). When I earned it all back, I found something else that I wanted so I bought that, and then I worked to make that gold back. So it was earn and spend, earn and spend. 

Once I had bought everything I wanted and made back all the gold I spent, I just keep making gold until one day I realized that I was close to 100,000 gold on hand, so that became my new goal. When I hit that goal it became 200K then 300K, and so on. My current Goal is 1,000,000 Gold and I am almost there!!!

9. What's your favorite niche market & why?I’ve only worked in two markets Glyphs and Flipping Items on the AH. Can’t really say which one I prefer more. I think I make more gold with Glyphs but it’s a tough market to compete in and very time consuming. I enjoy finding valuable items for sale cheap on the AH and selling them for big profits. More fun, less time and work involved. As I state on my website “you could call me a casual gold maker” lol.

10. Do you farm materials? Why? Why not? & which ones, where?I do not farm materials for my glyphs. I buy all my herbs off the AH and mill them into ink. I can still make a profit buying mats and thereby have more of my valuable game time to “play” not “work”. If I can’t make a profit on the glyph due to the cost of the mats, I don’t buy the mats and don’t make the glyph. Hopefully the laws of supply and demand with drive down the cost of the mats going unsold on the AH.

11. Most of us use TSM, Auctioneer and/or Auctionator in combo with Postal - are there any other lesser known gold making addons you use?The only add-ons I know are the big ones that I'm sure every gold maker has on their computer already, an auction house add-on and trade skill master for sure.

12. What was your biggest 'oops' moment?The biggest oops I’ve made actually occurred over the period of couple of weeks before I caught it and it had to do with a change I made to the settings in Trade Skill Master. I had my add-on set to not post glyphs on the AH if they will not make a certain level of profit from the sale, which is fine except that I had also told the add on to always undercut one of my competitors because he/she was trying to control the market. So for about two weeks I was losing gold on every glyph I made and sold because they were being posted and sold for less than what it was costing me to make them. I was selling more than the competitor I was automatically undercutting but I was losing gold instead of making it. A huge waste of time and energy. 

13. What was your biggest 'Yay!' moment?My biggest Yay! was making over 12,000 gold in just two nights from selling Transmog gear for which I might have paid 200 gold on the AH for, if that.

14. How much of your playtime is devoted to gold making? Do you raid/pvp/pet battle too or is the AH your main playtime?I estimate I only spend about 20 to 25% of my game time doing gold making chores so about 1 hour for every 4 or 5 hours I’m in game, however I do spend additional time working the AH to make gold buying and selling items when I am not logged on WoW through the use of AH tracking websites and WoW’s Mobile AH application.

15. Professions - do you have all of them, some or none? Which is your favorite for goldmaking?I can only speak about Inscription which is an excellent gold making profession because it is the only source of glyphs and every toon in the game needs them. A few downsides are that it’s a competitive market and creating and posting glyphs is time consuming.

16. Flipping! Do you flip stuff regularly or sometimes? Big ticket items or smaller high volume stuff?Flipping items or what I call “working the AH” to me is a lot of fun, but it can be a difficult endeavor and will take time to learn your particular servers AH and the buying and selling habits of the people on your realm. Knowing what items are really worth (the average price of what they have sold for in the past on your AH) is critical to your success in profiting from flipping. A lot of it is trial and error but as long as you’re not buying something for more than its worth and selling it for less than it is worth you might make a profit. I love buying something for 15 gold and selling it the next night for 700. Big profit!

17. Pets - Did you used to do the Vendor pet sales? How have pet battles changed things for you?Never really looked closely at the vendor pet / battle pet market, but there are a few people working that market on my server.

18. What is the most important bit of advice you could give to a new gold maker? (not a game newbie though, just a newbie gold maker)My advice for a new guild maker is detailed on my website but in short I’d say

• make a bank alt to handle your gold making transactions, 

• get an AH add-on so you know what stuff is really worth on your realm and to help post auctions. 

• Vendor all your grays, put everything else on the AH that you don’t want or need before you log off for the night.

• Level a gathering and crafting profession so that you can spend a little time farming mats to sell or creating items to sell on the AH for profit.

• Earn and keep more gold then you spend! 

• Be patient, it takes a lot of time and effort to get rich.

Start off small and slow. Set a reasonable, attainable short term goal and when you reach it, set another reasonable, attainable short term goal. Rise and repeat. Research and read and learn all you can about how other people are making gold and see if you can put that knowledge or techniques to work for you. There are a lot of resources on the internet.

19. Have you bought yourself anything really expensive as a reward for earning all that gold? Or do you have a self-present in mind for when you reach your goal?When I reach 1 Million Gold, I’m going to buy all the hard-to-get mounts that come up on the Black Market AH from time to time. There’s a Green Protodrake on there right now for 20,000 gold that I really want and it takes great restraint on my part not to buy it right now. The only thing stopping me is that it will set me that much back from reaching my goal and I am so close.

20. Lets spread some blog love - which are your 'must read' or 'go to' gold blogs or even other places you go for information & reading matter? Blogs you should read: Auction House Addict, Kuja’s Gold Mine (I have a few old posts on Kuja’s Forum), Phat Lewts’ Gold Blog, and WTB Gold to name a few.

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Thank you Jon for submitting your gold making story & for taking the time to type it all out! I hope you reach your Million very soon and have fun all the way there as well!

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What's Been Selling This Week? 23rd Sept Edition

Well it felt like it was a good week on the Auction House but I have been a bit distracted by Hearthstone & a few other projects too. It was only yesterday evening when I went to take a screenshot of the My Sales summary that I realised that after the mini-patch last maintenance day, I hadn't enabled out of date addons & none of my sales for the week have been recorded! I feel like I've been asleep most of the week or at least zoned out so I doubt my figures would have been that good anyway!

However, I can say that I haven't sold as many gems as the previous week or any of the new glyphs as I didn't craft any new ones & I've even let my daily Cooldowns slip a bit too. I have been selling some of the new Crafted PvP pieces though - not for the 1000g they were in the first week after patch but I have kept the price up to around 700g. That sounds great but actually, that's what I was selling the previous PvP gear for soit's not really that good as material costs are much greater this time.

Having said that, Exotic Leather is super cheap now - I'm so glad I didn't raise my buy price before the patch - I was a little worried that I wouldn't have enough Leather but not having played the PTR, I hadn't picked up on the Skinners Paradise that is the Timeless Isle! I even managed to grab a few stacks of Exotic leather at 10-15g per stack!

Mysterious Fortune Cards are still selling well - my super cheap competitor must be busy over on the Isle or raiding or something because I've had almost no competition again this week. I'm not complaining - I still have over 1000 in stock so I'll be selling these until the next expansion I reckon!

As for the Isle? Well, I took my Paladin over first and got a whole load of 496 purples - sent some to my DK & then took her over too. Wow! What a difference between the two - my Pally can barely manage to stay alive, even though she has a much higher item level. My DK is blood spec though so although she stays alive pretty well, she takes forever to kill anything!

My paladin is my skinner too so I keep kept getting distracted by all that lovely leather just laying around! I'm not sure which alt I'll take over there next or quite what to do once I'm there to be honest. I quickly got bored of chest hunting & rare chasing isn't really much fun when you die in the first 30 seconds or so! lol

I made sure to turn my add-ons back on so hopefully normal reporting will resume next week. I did find this cool graph bit in TSM but I haven't got my head around the Accounting reporting function yet. You can clearly see when the Patch 5.4 activity started though & you can also see the flatline near the top where I didn't even log in for a day or two! Oops!

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Saturday Celebrations! - A New Gold Making Community Idea

Following on from the amazing response I had to my 20 Days of Gold Making back in January, I've had another brainwave! A long while ago, when I was first starting out in making gold, I regularly used to read the milestone interviews over at Warcraft Econ website and they were often my inspiration. I longed to join the Millionaires Club so I put off writing my 500k interview. Then when I finally did hit my million, a computer hiccup meant I lost all my sales data so I never actually got around to writing my Interview! Sadly, it's no longer there and whilst we can all shout out on Twitter, Reddit or our own blogs etc about our successes, I thought it might be nice to have them all in one place again.

So, the idea here is to collect a whole bunch of interviews with Goldmakers as they reach their milestones. I don't want to restrict it to gold capped or millionaires - any milestone amount will qualify you for a spot here starting at 100,000 gold.

If you'd like to send in your story, you can email me at auctionhouseaddict at gmail dot com and put 'Milestone Interview' as the subject. I'd suggest the following questions to get your thoughts in order or you can use the 20 days of gold making questions as the basis for your interview.

• what is your milestone amount?

• what got you started making gold and when?

• which markets have you concentrated on, if any?

• biggest successes or biggest failures

• advice for new goldmakers

• shout outs for any blogs, podcasts or streams that helped you along the way

• what's your new goal, if any? 

I plan to post an Interview about once a week, probably on a Saturday (if I get enough responses, of course) and the links will be listed here in date order so we'll always have an easy way to find them.

You don't need your own blog for this - in fact, most bloggers post their milestones on their own blogs so this is more for those of you out there, making gold with nowhere to celebrate your successes! If you do have your own blog, send in an Interview anyway - it's a great way to improve your visibility! Lets all celebrate together - beers are on the house!

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Happy Birthday Mr Co-Host! Ep 13 Journal of Marcus Ty Podcast

We recorded this week's show on Marcus's birthday so I made him a little present! It was also Friday 13th so it was really appropriate to inflict my singing on him - true horror show stuff it was! I was trying for a marilyn Monroe kind of effect, not sure I quite pulled it off though! This Episode 13 was also recorded just 2 days into Patch 5.4 - consequently our topic of discussion was blindingly obvious & we talked about all our first impressions of the new Timeless Isle. I'm pretty sure we got a few things wrong too as everything was so new!

We did try to give some hints & tips for questing or not running around like headless chickens - at least, that's how it feels to me so far! Marcus seems a little more focused and informative though. We talked briefly about the Auction Houses on our realms & hopes for further into the new patch and we talked about how to get some of the better chests on the new Isle.

As usual, you can find the show on iTunes or Stitcher radio or if you prefer, you can play it directly from Marcus's website


Show Notes

• Welcome to the Pig & Whistle, Stormwind.
• Happy birthday Mr Co-Host…
• Our week in WoW
• News from the Front
• Nev and Marcus discuss the new patch 5.4
• Hints and tips when questing on the Timeless Isle
• Keep your hands off my big chest!
• Where to get an invite to the Marcus Ty VIP list
• Markets of the week.

Resources mentioned in the podcast:
Contact Marcus Ty on Twitter @MarcusTy
Contact Nev on Twitter @NevAHaddict
Marcus' Blog - WoW Gold Journal

Nev's other blog! - She Rides Dragons
Email Marcus at JournalofMarcusTy.com

If you don't know, Marcus has written a very extensive gold guide and is working on updating it all the time. I've been an affiliate of his for a long while now as I believe it is one of the best gold making guides out there. You can get more details at his Auction House Secrets site. It's not for experienced gold makers of course but if you're just starting out, you will find it very helpful and there's a 60 day money back guarantee too!

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