Basically there are unlimited ways to make money in this game but i'll be going trough the main ones that people use and are legit.
I will not be discussing of illegal ways of making money or anything else on this blog.
Fishing
Fishing boat own/friends recommended on having
Fishing is currently the best way to make money by far. If you are just starting fishing, buy a "Wrapped Bamboo Fishing Rod" from the auction house and you will have your fishing rod ready. Next I'd recommend getting bait worms to get your fishing up to 10k, there are two way to do this, either buy them from the auction house or make seed bundles on a farmers workstation(requires 15k farming), harvesting seed bundles will give you bait worms.
Next time you go AFK just go next to a sea/lake and AUTO-fish by pressing the fishing button with shift + rightclick and it'll keep fishing. Try and get high labor for this.
When you are at 10k fishing you should start sports fishing. To sports fish you'll need some type of chum and a lure. you can buy chums and lures at bluesalt merchant in Lilyut hills (Requires Vocation Padges(obtained from gathering skills)). its just outside the private farm in windshade. After you've obtained lures / chums you can head to the open sea, you can sports fish around areas where you see a bunch of seagulls flying in a circle.
There are different lures for different rods and different chum for different fish. will be listing them below.
ROD:
Yellow Lure Bamboo Fishing Rod & Steel Fishing Rod
Green Lure Springy Steel Fishing Rod
Blue Lure Gilt Fishing Rod
Red Lure Archeum Fishing Rod
CHUM:
Chum Carp & Electric Eel(fresh water fish)
Chopped Squid Arowana
Chopped Roosterfish Sturgeon
Chopped Sardines Bluefin Tuna
Chopped Pike Sailfish
Chopped Mackerel Blue Marlin
(lists above from cheapest to highest order)
not 100% list, only basic stuff.
Traderuns
Second best way to make money.
Tradeship / Farm wagon recommended
When you open folio (O) you will see a crafting skill Commerce, from there you select Nuian/Haranyan specialties. There you will find all the packs you can make at your selected continent. You should select a place where "specialty workbench"(check map) is near sea and craft packs there. From the crafting window you will see what materials you will need to make it.
You can get materials two ways, either make them yourself on your farm or buy them of the auction house. when you hover your mouse on an item you'll see how to get it so wont be going trough all packs here.
If you are just starting traderuns and have never done them before you should buy a donkey from mirage island(blue portal near auctioneer). It will allow you to move faster with a tradepack.
After you've made your first tradepack you have to select where you should carry it. Their sell price will be decided upon how many zones are between craft and sale locations, Is there a searoute, is it a pvp area.
Every zone will grow the price with ~1gold.
a possible searoute lowers the price by a small amount.
PvP area will highly increase the value
Before starting your trip i recommend studying the map and selecting a best route you can take, remember that when you are carrying a single tradepack you can also use searoutes on some parts of the journey.
You can also gain gilda stars for an example for a tradeship / fishing boat, by returning tradepacks to Freedich island which is located in the middle of the game map, Freedich island is highly active pvp area so I don't recommend heading there unless you are lv50.
Additional notes:
Tradepack slows you down
You cant use hereafter portals while carrying a pack
You cant glide while carrying a tradepack
Coinpurses
Yes coinpurses. This will take a lot of time and lots of grinding to actually give you money.
You should start this when you hit lv50, go to one of these places.
Sailfish in Perinoor Ruins
Weresharks in Sanddeep(beach north of golden fable)
Yetis in Brookborne Basin
Golems / Bears in brookborne.
I recommend taking some MP potions with you for full AOE dmg. Unless you want to kill them one by one by autoattacking with manastars on similar.
Every coinpurse you open will have a change of giving you an item that you can sell on a high price in auction house.
Every coinpurse will give you larceny proficiency and higher proficiency will give you higher change to get items on the purses/double item.
Additional notes: Higher larceny will also cause you not to leave footprints when committing a crime.