Hey, a question I know how to answer!

The first major thing that influences money making is passion. A lot of people (like myself) could spend 8 hours straight crafting things. Checking market trends, and socializing in novice network while doing it. To some--it's tedious as heck, but to others it's 'what' they do to enjoy the game. If you don't have a passion for crafting--you'll never compete with someone who actually enjoys it.

The second major factor are retainers. You could almost argue that they're pay to win! You see, for each retainer you have means +20 auction slots per character. Given that managing up to 10 retainers can take a lot of time, but remember--this goes alongside the passion thing. Some people ENJOY that kind of work. It's like playing the Sims or Farmville. There's some enjoyment in tedious micro-management.

A lot of it still resorts back to the passion thing. A lot of people try to 'get rich quick,' but there's no fast way of doing it. Heck, even my methods are more like an assembly-line. I'll invest 50 mil early on, and won't see a return on my investment until several weeks down the road. But playing the market board is all about being smart. Buy low/sell high type things. Sometimes it takes time to take advantage of those trends. Sometimes you can scope out 10,000 moly ingots for 900 gil each. How long will it take to flip them or convert them into yellow scrips? Who knows, but the sooner you get started--the sooner you'll start seeing returns. It's not a 'quick' thing. Getting rich is a well-tuned machine of many-many small decisions that all lead up to massive gil intake over time. And if maintained--can keep you rich for a long time to follow.

I guess I got overzealous, but the bottom line is--you need to be passionate about it. It's like asking how you farm mendacity. There's no easy way. You just need to really want to do the type of content that rewards it.