WoW newbie looking for advice

[Swiss Mercenary]

And I will echo Monkey. Herbalism isn't worth much at low levels, but it's easy, pays off later, and you can still find the occasional buyer for the lowbie stuff on the auction house.

I find that it depends on the server, and not just on the population - on Spinebreaker, I was selling stacks of Earthroot for 4 gold. My druid had >100 gold by level 30.

OTOH, on Tichondrius, my warlock only got to ~60 by level 40.

I can observe that Herbalism is by far the most painless gathering skill to level. I don't want to ever repeat the time I've spent running around, looking for Tin/Iron/Mithril/Thorium veins, just so I could increase my mining skill, to mine the veins I was passing up in the higher level zones.