Inscription can be one of the more difficult professions to make gold with, but it can be highly profitable if you have the right market and experience.
Is Inscription Right for You? Depends on the server!
Like most other professions, the glyph market can either be extremely profitable or dismal depending on the market of your particular server. It’s important to weigh in the raw material costs of each glyph recipe before venturing down the path of the scribe.
As you need at least 3 blackfallow inks to create a glyph, check your server’s price for Cinderbloom (produces 3~5 ink/stack). Using Auctioneer, check the average buyout for your server for each glyph and note the ones that you can make for a decent profit. If you can make a glyph for 30g but sell it for 100+g, it’s usually worth investing the time into scribing. However, you also have to consider the possible profitability of flipping the raw mats. On some servers, it is more profitable to sell the herbs themselves than glyphs simply because they are faster-moving and generally have a larger market with fewer heavy weight sellers controlling them.
Using Tradeskill Master to Acquire Mats
One of the most important add-ons to be familiar with as a scribe is Tradeskill Master.
Using TSM, you can easily find the best priced herbs to mill for your inking needs. Depending on the day, you may find that certain herbs are in over-supply on your server and significantly cheaper than normal prices. I usually stock up as many as I can and save them for later use.
TSM can also be used to automatically restock mats based on their profitability. It does for trade skills what Auctioneer first did for the Auction House–if you aren’t using it, you can bet your competition will be!
Once you’ve purchased your raw materials, it’s time to actually make your ink–arguably the most difficult and boring part of the process. Using an add-on like Expeller Button can lessen the frustration that comes with mass milling.
This add-on makes a nifty macro that can easily be bound to your mouse scroll button (or any other button for laptop users) that will allow you to select a particular herb stack from your inventory and grind it with a single press.
Avoiding Competitor Undercuts
Glyphs are always difficult to sell because they tend to sit around long enough to get undercut by your fellow auctioners. A lot of players quickly grow frustrated because they’ll post their glyphs only to find themselves undercut only seconds later. There isn’t a real trick to avoid this consistently other than “try, and then try again”.
If you find yourself being undercut, try and figure out the posting routine of your competition so that you can post your auctions after theirs.
If you’ve found yourself undercut, go to the “Auctioning cancel” menu of TSM and you can easily remove all the posts that were undercut. Although weekends have some of the best markets for glyphs, it’s also the easiest time to be undercut as other sellers want to take advantage of the surge of players.
How Much Do I Undercut By?
Most players never think about undercutting seriously. The default is 1 copper, and generally players accept that as being the best option. There is, however, a time when “deep undercutting” can be extremely useful and actually more profitable than only cutting a few copper.
For example, if you know your competition is monitoring your postings, you can easily undercut them by a hefty amount and lure them into buying out your surplus stock. This often happens when major economy players are trying to reset the market price of a glyph (or any other item). While they have the funds to “sit” on the glyphs until they sell, you can turn a quick profit and use it to reinvest into your gold making efforts.
