Dear Gold Queen Readers,
Today I am frustrated because posts like this about Paid For gold guides tar all gold makers with the same, awful, brush.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/998799-Hayden-Hawke-richest-player-on-WoW
TL;DR:
- We’re scammers.
- It’s bullshit
- No one has over a million gold [me: HAHHAHA]
- Don’t buy guides that mention farming
- Best way to make gold is farming
- “She’s chubby” [what?]
- “God is she hideous”. [WHAT?]
- Don’t pay for what you can get free
- No one with gold will tell you how they got it
- “Just some dumb cunt making up bullshit lies to illegally make money off Blizzard’s game.”
- These guides are a con
- Some obese internet marketer makes $250,000 per guide
Apart from the terrifying misogyny, the revulsion to people wanting to know more about WoW and Gold Making, I wonder if the people complaining about Video Gamers realise that they are actually Video Gamers. Self-disgust is always upsetting for me to read.
Paid Gold Guides Myths
That aside, allow me to disect the myths surrounding Paid Gold Guides!
Internet marketers are not the same as gold makers!
let me say that again …
Internet marketers are not the same as gold makers!
Gold makers are not the same as gold farmers
Farmers are not (always) the same as gold sellers
How to know whether your guide is WORTH even reading.
Is it popular? Well if lots of people are doing it, and continue to do it, then it must be making gold for them. Like Medallion of Legion, if it works, do it. Take this as your bread-and-butter gold making. And then add your own sauce to it. Your own flavouring.
An internet marketer takes all the gold making guides he can get, wraps them up nicely, and presents them. You are paying for the packaging. But the trouble is, WoW is an ever-changing game. Even in times when new content is not being released, new players are coming and going, new competitors, new buyers. If the guide is pre-packaged, does it take this into consideration? That’s why I proudly think my blog is superior.
It frustrates me when I hear things like “Dont pay for what you can get free.” You can get free potatoes if you plant some in the ground and water them regularly, watching over them, harvesting them at the right time. Or you can just buy some fries. No one ever complains that Mcdonalds are scamming people illegally because you could grow your own potatoes at home.
Guide, or Course?
When I started writing about gold, a “Gold Guide” meant everything about making gold, from start to finish. Now a “Gold Guide” means “Farm this place”, and I had to rename my full gold making guide as a Course. Free Gold Making Email Course available here.
My Business Model
I’m open about my business model.
I started TGQ so that I could work from home and care 24/7 for my disabled child, and play my favourite game, and share information I knew. All my blog, and my gold making email course are free. But I have to eat too. I have bills to pay.
Here’s how I started out as TGQ
- I give away 90% of everything I know. I keep 10% back.
- I write blog posts/guides 2-3 times a week.
- I am available on Twitter for about 18 hours per day for fun, chats, ideas, tips.
- I try and answer every email (use the contact page!)
- Sometimes I livestream on Twitch.tv while multi-tasking caring for the kids.
I give this all away for free to build good will. In the hopes that you will donate (buy me coffee!), come to the Twitch Livestream to donate, or buy the new upcoming Garrison Gold Guide. One day I will try and put 100% of everything I know, in the right order, with the right encouragement and inspiration you need, and charge something like $40 for it.
Only problem is that “everything I know” is prohibitively large, and last time I tried to make this, my project management skills added this up to 100 hours of video guides, plus PDFs. Which would mean about 6-700 work hours for me, with scripting, filming, editing, rendering, quality control, uploading, website admin, getting it up on Clickbank, marketing, graphics, affiliate management, then ongoing maintenance, admin, customer service. I’m not sure how to do this, yet. But it’s my goal. Last time I tried, I got about 2/3 the way through before my hard drive died, argh! I couldn’t afford a backup drive, so it was all gone.
Here’s the truth about professional gold guides like “Secret Gold Guide”.
- They are written by a team, not a girl.
- Companies use models/actors in advertising. The people in the toilet tissue TV adverts do not work in the toilet tissue factory nor invent the stuff.
- The big “gold guides” are made to make $$ money, not to ‘help’.
- The actual writers are a mixture of normal players who want to make a small amount of money (eg $50 per section) and professional editors from elance or odesk who stick it all together.
- They get their updates from blogs, because it’s easier to cut n paste from websites than youtube vids or twitch livestreaming. I know this cause I found my own blog on one of the paid guides once.
- They are pretty comprehensive.
- But you can get most of their stuff from surfing the web. It’s just easier for some people to follow step by step rather than hunting it all down.
- Some people say it’s written very patronising as if you were in kindergarten.
- They will try and “upsell” as many more guides as they can.
It’s not pathetic to buy something about gold making if 1) you want it and 2) the packaging/delivery/convenience works for you
If you have the time, the experience, the interest, it’s also absolutely ok to NOT buy a gold guide, and to work it all out for yourself. The best guide is one that works for you. My guide would be something that could be individually and uniquely tailored to each buyer.
In the meantime, here is my Free Gold Making Email Course. And here is my link to Hayden Hawke’s Secret Gold Guide if you want to check it out for yourself. Would I buy it? Yeah, I’m nosy.
Thanks for the chat, Gold Queen
About the Author
The Gold Queen is written by Alyzande. With many level 100s, 9 years expertise in making gold, 11 garrisons, 17k+ achievements, 1593 days played, and over 32 million gold earned. The Gold Queen blog teaches you how to make gold playing World of Warcraft using ethical trading, auction house flipping, crafting, reselling snatch lists, and farming gold making.
