How to pick an item to grind for money

I'd just like to state off the bat that this post will mostly apply to people already at the level cap, although you may be able to use this advice bellow level 80. So, suppose you are tired of the grind of dailies and you want to try to make some money some other way. How can you do it? To give you a hint, the answer was in the second sentence of this post. Yes, grinding. It may not be very appealing to you, but it's really your other option aside from playing the auction house, and I know that that method does not work for me. I'll warn you know that this post won't cover the act of grinding itself; just how to choose where to grind.

Before you start, you may want to get a base line of how much money you wish to make per hour. To get that base line for myself, I did all of the Ebon Blade dailies excluding Intelligence Gathering (it takes too damn long) and all of the solo Alliance dailies in Icecrown on the Bombardment excluding That's Abominable! (again, takes too damn long), since those sets of dailies have the highest amount of gold per hour. I then recorded how much gold I made and how much I made per hour.

Ebon Blade:
75 gold (+15 gold in herbs), 17 minutes, 270 (318 with herbs) gold/hour
Bombardment:
110 gold (+10 gold in herbs and cloth), 30 minutes, 220 (240 with herbs and cloth) gold/hour

This means that my baseline is 250-300 gold per hour for my farming. The reason I picked that base line for myself is that, if I'm not making more than that, then I'll make more with dailies than by farming. Of course, if you want to use farming to break up the monotony of dailies, then you don't really need to worry about a baseline based on dailies. In fact, most of you probably won't want to worry about a baseline at all, so if you don't want to, then don't.

Now for the instructions. One big mistake people make with farming or with any kind of money-making method is not being flexible. They pick one item to farm (or one method for making money) and farm that every time. However, if you want to make the big bucks, you need to be a bit more flexible then that. Start by seeing what sells well on your server. Auctioneer can help with this, but it isn't necessary. Don't dismiss anything in your search for a good thing to farm. Meat may not seem like a worth-while thing to farm, but there may be a dearth of Chunk o' Mammoth on your realm's AH that you could take advantage of. If you need a place to start, Eternal Air and Fire usually sell well. Fishing can also make you a good bit of money. In my experience, the only high-end fish worth fishing for money are Musselback Sculpin, Glacial Salmon, and Dragonfin Angelfish, and it's infinitely better to fish in pools than in open water. You should also look into using your gathering professions to make money. Ore and herbs usually sell well. I can't speak for miners, but as an herbalist, I know that Adder's Tongue, Lichbloom, and Icethorn are my best sellers.

As a note about Adder's Tongue, the reason it sells well is that it is fairly low level for a high-end herb, and thus doesn't get picked a lot. What this means for you is that you can look into low level markets with low supply but high demand and take advantage of them. Low level enchanting supplies can make you money in this way, as can low level ores and herbs. I haven't tried this kind of venture myself, so all I can say is keep your eyes open for opportunities.

The other key to making money with farming is knowing how many of a particular item you can farm in a certain amount of time. If item A is selling for 10 gold and item B is selling for 20 gold, but you can get 30 of item A in an hour and 10 of item B, you'll want to go for item A. It's also a good idea to see if you can farm for different things at the same time. At the lake in Borean Tundra, I can farm Tiger Lily and fish for Musselback Sculpin at the same time. Depending on the market, I can make quite a bit of money there by farming both things at once. If you need a macro to switch between your various tracking skills, here's the one I use.

#showtooltip
/castsequence [nocombat] find fish, find herbs

This allows me to see both schools and herbs by switching between the two. You can switch what I put in there with your own tracking skills or add more if you wish too.

Now for the money making part. This is where Auctioneer will really come in handy. Before you start farming, check the AH to see what is selling for high prices that night. (Having a dedicated auction alt also helps for this part) I once checked the AH and saw that Glacial Salmon was selling for 150% of it's usual price. I pounced that opportunity and starting flying over the rivers of Grizzly Hills. Within a half hour, I had four stacks of Salmon, which I sold at 40 gold each. All four sold quickly, and I ended up making 160 gold. That's 320 gold and hour. It may not seem like much, but it's more than I could make with dailies.

Don't expect to see too many opportunities like this, though. Most items that sell for high prices have a lot of people farming them, meaning their supply is fairly stable, so the price is too. Of course, the market place is just as unpredictable as the real one, so you never know. Just look for markets that reliably sell well and you will be all set.

To summarize all that, watch for markets that typically sell high, know how many items you can typically get in a certain amount of time, and use that to make money. With a tad bit of luck, you could become quite rich, and the fact that you won't be doing the same thing every day (*cough* dailies *cough*) means you won't get bored as quickly.