Other Trades

I've been asked to highlight some money making procedures other trades besides Inscription can offer. I figure that since there really are so many opportunities, I will go with the basic approaches each trade skill offers for moneymaking. I won't go into secondary or gather professions, as they are simply Get Item: Sell Item. Also, as a general rule of thumb, any recipe that involves a Cool down is money.

To start, we need to learn the most basic formula of to craft items.

Base material > Trade material > Crafted item > Potential secondary item > Dust

Choosing where in this process to sell an item is as important as the formula.

Alchemy
The trick in Alchemy is of course choosing a specialization that will offer you increased income when your crafting procs. Since you can only make so many of certain items per day, there is a lot of value to some of the craftable items (Such as transmuting diamonds). There is a belief that since Alchemy is an 'Understood' Trade (Most people know what base items will craft X item they want) the Knowledge of Alchemy lowers profits. Flasks, Meta gems, and discovered potions can be money makers. Usually not many items to sell, but a good profit on Tuesday nights when "I forgot to supply during the week' raiders buy up AH standing flasks.

Blacksmithing
Considerable materials and many Cool downs offer Blacksmithing quite a few profit making options. Scanning the AH for your best items, finding any that might be not presented or poorly priced (Too high), crafting said item, and listing it; following this process daily can keep the income flowing. Everyone makes Eternal belt buckles, but there will always be additional demand for these as everyone gets new gear all the time. You can almost guarantee every level 80 on your server will need 2-4 of these in the future.

Enchanting
Creating useful enchants and listing them as scrolls is a great opportunity to sell your services while you're offline. Most enchanters think their small profits vs. their invested money comes from the mediocre tips they receive while performing enchants. The key to think about enchanting profitably is to look at it as a volume trade. Everyone wants 5-7 enchants on their gear, and will need enchanting materials to do it. Most enchanters do not keep materials on hand. So the profit clearly lies in selling cheap dusts. Scanning the AH for cheaply priced green items at the appropriate level, grinding them into dust, and re-listing the materials can be profitable. Ask your guild if anyone sells greens to vendors, offer to pay vendor price for them.

Engineering
The often mis-labeled 'useless' trade. There are very few money making recipes in Engineering. Many people think ammunition is the only one. That means you only sell to 1/10th of the player classes on the server. So it can never be a good market. Many people like Engineering on their characters because they think it provides abilities and is fun. So focus your money making on that. Lots of engineering leveling requires other engineer components. Selling leveling parts, especially if you chart and estimate what #'s are hard to level engineering at and sell items that are appropriately useful for skill-ups, is profitable. More people level engineering than have it at max level. Ignore Army Knife (overdone, small margin) or Motorcycle (prohibitive npc part cost), both are unmarketable.

Jewelcrafting
The second best trade. Jewelcrafting shares with Inscription the joy of having hundreds of items to sell that will, and demand for them is always high. Sadly, the components that make gems are easier, and thus more people to compete with. You can profit by having ores sold to you for cheap and producing your own gems from base to end product. Also, taking the green gems plus eternal earths, making lvl 72 rings, paying someone to Disenchant them for you, and listing the dusts. This process is really not a lot of profit for the work though, so only use it to make up ore costs. The daily quest for Jewelcrafters is like a cool down, recognize that. And remember: People usually only care about having the biggest number. So markets for Spell power and Attack power are consistently healthier.

Leatherworking
Armor patches for pants are over-played, and often not easy to compete in. Instead, great profit can be made from turning lower leathers into higher. Also, there is a common profit to blacksmithing in leatherworking by checking for single items not on the AH that are popular. You have to consider who will buy it, of course. Twinks, or people that play the last level of their battleground bracket, are constant possible income sources (Althought saturated). Selling leveling gear might also be profitable, but check your AH prices first. Many leatherworkers drop skinning for a second profession at some point to min/max their raid dps, so you can capitalize on that if you keep your gathering skinning to increase your supply.

Tailoring
The obvious recommendation is: Netherweave bags. These will ALWAYS sell. I do not usually make such stupid, possibly incorrect statements. It's true though, they will ALWAYS sell. So the trick is to own as much of the netherweave available as possible. Watch for it as other tailors will try to grab it up for their profits. It's not a lot of profit per bag, but selling 200-300 bags per weekend will make up for it. Of course you have the cool down cloth to make, never forget to do that. Look for leveling gear to make, and spellthreads sometimes will sell also. If you can internalize some of the costs, larger bags can be profitable also.

As will all of these, spending time collecting materials yourself is not a profit per hour increasing activity. You may up with more gold overall, but you spend more time to make it, and work twice as hard. If you can make any of these processes automated, or find a way around them, you can make more profit. Always look for new ways to profit!

*edit*
I did not go into secondary trades, but it's important to note for Alchemy, you can greatly benefit from having certain fish from your own efforts to produce items. /end hint