How to Make Gold with Inscription

Inscription is a great profession, the best part is that glyph prices are based on availability opposed to material costs. So the best thing you can do to increase your profit potential is to make your glyphs available, I'll talk more about that in the glyph section below. There are three main ways to make gold with Inscription. You can sell glyphs, vellums or Darkmoon Cards. Darkmoon Cards are risky, vellums are consistent but not incredibly profitable and glyphs have the potential to make a few hundred gold in just 10-20 minutes.

Creating Glyphs for Profit
As mentioned above, the best part about being a scribe is the disconnect between material costs and glyph value. You can make 20-30g on a glyph just for being the person who has it at the right time. This is supply and demand at it's finest. The best way to make yourself available is to link your book in trade along with a flat price (say, 20g). However, you can make a lot more in World of Warcraft by posting otherwise unavailable glyphs on the Auction House and hope that someone else doesn't undercut you before a paying customer buys your glyph.

Making glyphs available can be tough if you haven't discovered any unique glyphs (but not impossible). At every opportunity you need to use Northrend Inscription Research and Minor Inscription Research to discover more glyphs. You should also look for affordable Book of Glyph Masteries to the post Patch 3.1 glyphs. These glyphs are easily the most valuable since they are still very rare and are among the best major glyphs in the game.

When you're not advertising by linking your book in trade, deciding which glyphs to make and post on the Auction House is the challenge. The strategy I use is to search the Auction House for every glyph, leaving the Name field empty and selecting Glyph on the left:



Then sorting by Bid Total (make sure when it sorts it doesn't sort just the visible page, if you see outlandish prices then it's working) Scroll your way down until you find an expensive glyph that you can make. Search for that glyph to see if there are any listed cheaper, if not then write it down to craft it. Come up with a dozen or so glyphs to craft this way and craft them. This should take 10-20 minutes and net you hundreds of gold.

Some glyphs in World of Warcraft won't show up this way because they simply aren't posted, and these are the best glyphs to sell! When you post a glyph that isn't posted yet start the price between 40 and 50g (for a normal glyph), anything higher (depending on the glyph)
and you'll be encouraging your potential customers to find an Inscriptionist in their guild to make it for them.

Popular Glyphs:

Glyph	Class	Value	Source
Glyph of Dash	Druid	45G	Discovery
Glyph of Starfall	Druid	45G	Discovery
Glyph of Mend Pet	Hunter	45G	Discovery
Glyph of Penguin	Mage	45G	Discovery
Glyph of Obliterate	Death Knight	40g	Discovery
Glyph of Avenger's Shield	Paladin	40g	Discovery
Glyph of Mortal Strike	Warlock	40g	Discovery
Glyph of Arcane Intellect	Mage	37g	Discovery
Glyph of Conflagrate	Warlock	35g	Discovery
Glyph of Healing Wave	Shaman	35g	Discovery
Glyph of Incinerate	Warlock	35g	Trainer
Glyph of Health Funnel	Warlock	35g	Trainer
Glyph of Swiftmend	Druid	35g	Discovery
Glyph of Dark Death	Death Knight	34g	Trainer
Glyph of Steadyshot	Hunter	34g	Discovery
Glyph of the Ghoul	Death Knight	32g	Trainer
Glyph of Revive Pet	Hunter	31g	Discovery
Glyph of Hemorrhage	Rogue	30g	Discovery
Glyph of Unbreakable Armor	Death Knight	30g	Trainer
Glyph of Vanish	Rogue	30g	Discovery
Glyph of Deadly Throw	Rogue	30g	Discovery
Glyph of Shadowfiend	Priest	30g	Discovery
Glyph of Blood Tap	Death Knight	30g	Discovery
Glyph of Renewed Life	Shaman	25g	Discovery
Glyph of Ghost Wolf	Shaman	25g	Discovery
Glyph of Water Walking	Shaman	25g	Discovery
Glyph of Rupture	Rogue	25g	Discovery
Glyph of Exorcism	Paladin	25g	Trainer
Glyph of Resonating Power	Warlock	25g	Discovery
Glyph of Seal of Light	Paladin	25g	Discovery
Glyph of Arcane Blast	Mage	25g	Discovery
Glyph of Thorns	Druid	22g	Discovery
Glyph of Blocking	Warlock	20g	Discovery
Glyph of Circle of Healing	Priest	20g	Discovery
Glyph of Frostbolt	Mage	20g	Discovery
Glyph of Aimed Shot	Hunter	20g	Trainer
Glyph of Fireball	Mage	20g	Discovery
Glyph of Lightwell	Priest	20g	Discovery
Glyph of Wyvern Sting	Hunter	15g	Discovery

Weapon and Armor Vellums
Enchanters use vellums to post their enchants on the Auction House. Weapon Vellums are used for weapon enchants and Armor Vellums are used for armor. Each vellum is crafted from cheap parchment and usually cheap ink. Use the table below to make note of your realm's Auction House prices and calculate the potential AH price of the vellum. If the price is competitive compared to the other listings, craft a bunch and make some gold.

Item	Materials
2 Weapon Vellum	Midnight Ink - 5 level 10-20 herbs Light Parchment x 2 (6c)
2 Weapon Vellum II	Fiery Ink - random from lvl 40-50 herbs Celestial Ink - 5 level 40-50 herbs Heavy Parchment x 2 (6s)
2 Weapon Vellum III	Ink of the Sea x 3 - 15 Northrend herbs Resilient Parchment x 2 (2g)
2 Armor Vellum	Moonglow Ink - 5 level 1-10 herbs Light Parchment x 2 (6c)
2 Armor Vellum II	Celestial Ink - 5 level 40-50 herbs Common Parchment x 2 (62c)
2 Armor Vellum III	Ink of the Sea - 5 Northrend herbs Resilient Parchment x 2 (2g)

Darkmoon Cards of the North
Darkmoon Cards are turned in for an epic trinket during the Darkmoon Faire. However, you need to collect an entire deck, ace through eight, before being able to turn it in for the epic trinket. The trinkets are very valuable, but you have no say in which card you get. It costs a lot of money to craft a single random Darkmoon Card and you can be continually shafted on cards that are only worth ~20g.

It takes 10 Northrend herbs, on average, to produce a single Icy Pigment (which you need 12 of). However, you can exchange 10 Ink of the Sea for 1 Snowfall Ink. After doing the math, and creating a dozen cards myself, it takes about 80-100 Northrend herbs to get a single card. Even if Goldclover or Adder's Tongue is selling for 30g a stack, that's going to cost 120g per card. Lately, even the Aces can sell for as little as 80g. You should check your realm's Auction House to determine if this is something you're interested in. The possible results are as follows: Ace through Eight of Chaos, Ace through Eight of Undeath, Ace through Eight of Nobles and Ace through Eight of Prisms.