Making gold before level 60

There are countless of ways to earn money in World of Warcraft, it is not even worth to list all the ways here because it would take too much space. Also, you probably just want to know about the very best ways of gold making and not some mediocre way.

There is always the profession. Professions can be the most profitable way to earn money, that is if you pick the right profession for YOUR way of playing World of Warcraft. But at the very beginning the best professions to start with are:

Skinning, combined with either Mining or Herbalism

Q;Why not Mining and Herbalism?
A;Because of the simple fact that both Mining and Herbalism needs a reagent-tracker to be active for you to see the spot to farm these on the minimap. Skinning doesen't need this.

These are the core gold makers for the player between level 1-59. By selecting two of these you are most likley assured to get 100% more gold than you need for your mount at level 40 for instance ( When i was level 40 with my priest recently i had about 230 gold ). It is not hard to level up these professions either, you just have to keep grinding the mobs and stop every now and then to pick up a herb or mine a vein.

I know most of you will think 'Hey, thats not right… Enchanting is so much better for moneymaking'. That may very well be, but the problem with professions like Enchanting are that they:
1. Slow down your grind in a way that you need to keep buying enchanting tools
2. They are not very profitable unless you get to 300, and this needs some dedication.
3. Much harder to learn the tricks about. (Skinning = Kill mob,Skin,Repeat)

So you now have decided to choose a profession?
Then its time to give some guidelines for them…

MINING

Mining IS a cool profession (atleast i think so), and i usually pick mining infront of herbalism and usually mining pays a little more than herbalism in the long run.
The rules are simple, you grind and while grinding you keep an eye on the minimap for the veins. Remember that usually you can just sell the copper, tin and sometimes even iron to vendors. Because the cost mining them, running to AH, compete with others is just not worth it. So vendor this UNLESS there is a very big demand for it on AH.
When you reach Mithril level you want to start putting it up on AH, remember to always sell in bars and when i sell i usually sell in a specific system :
1. I put up 5 single bars on AH , by this i mean that i set up 5 auctions for 5 BARS and not stacks for the simple reason that sometimes people just need 1 bar and will buy it even if you overprice it instead of having to buy a 20 bar stack.
2. I only put up 3 stacks AT MOST, to keep the listing cost down. Put the rest of the bars in your bank. Remember that if you got too much mithril bars and noone buys, either lower your price a little or sell it to vendor, no need to cry about this.
For the thorium bars i use the same strategy of putting 5 single bars and 3 stacks on AH. But instead i never sell these bars. If you really don't have space for them, make a bankcharacter and put the bars there.
Don't make Steel bars unless you get an order from someone to make them, these are not very profitable to sell and if you do make them… make just 1 stack at maximum.
For gold and truesilver, ONLY sell these in single bars on AH. Most people dont need a stack of truesilver on their throat and probably will be screaming WTS 1 bar instead of buying your stack. So always sell in single bars here. Same method goes for Gold.

SKINNING

Skinning is easy and does not really speed down your leveling time since you need some resst after a combat and might aswell do this skinning.
Skinning is also very simple, you just try to kill more beasts than Humanoids, Undead etc.etc. so that every time that enemy mob goes down, you can skin it.

Q; If i dont kill Humanoids i dont get any cloth for my FA!
A; 1st. Unless you are a Warlock doing instances you don't really need FA untill level 60 and at that level you can fast cap it anyways.
2nd, if you REALLY REALLY need FA, no problem. It is okay to kill some humanoids but remember to kill enough beasts later on to get your skinning skill capped.

The basic leathers that you get from levels 1-30 about is just vendor trash, no need to spend downtime going to AH. Later on when you get to the more expensive leathers, keep the amount of stacks in AH at about 4-5 and not more to make sure you dont have to pay too much keeping them there.

HERBALISM

Herbalism is good to choose if you want an income that keeps up with your expenses without you having to be all too dedicated. As the other professions, this one is just as simple.
Always remember to have your herbalism tracker on and to keep a look at it. It will eventually pop up an herb nearby and it IS okay to grind trough the mobs to get to it. Most people see this as too much work for a single herb, instead you should see it as extra exp.
For the selling part you can follow this simple system to keep AH costs as low as possible:
Put up 2-3 single herbs and 2-3 stacks of 5! yes… by 5 i mean stacks of 5 herbs.
So by setting up small stacks and single herbs you give the alchemist an oppirtunity to get more freedom to buy what herb he wants without having to buy a stack , this results in an increased profit for YOU.