Let me give you some free advice that I've learned over the past year.
1) Very few people are willing to share all of their secrets unless you pay big (and if you can afford that, you can afford some good domains).
2) There is already a ton of information out there that is free and available. You just need to know where to look. Forums like this one are a great place to start. You have a gigantic jig-saw puzzle and a lot of the pieces are here, you just need to find them and figure out where they go in the giant puzzle. Learn who to listen to, who you'll need to weed out the BS, and who you need to completely ignore. Read, read, read. Just the information here (available to us for free) could be worth hundreds, if not thousands, if put together in an easy-to-read document (and if you'd do that, expect to be sued because a lot of people here don't like their work being sold).
3) Once you think you know it all, you realize you only know 1%.
4) Trial and error. You'll buy domains that are a flop. I've had to drop roughly 25-30 domains over the next few months because they were doing jack for me. It's better to let them drop than to continue spending reg fees on them. Hell, its better to sell them at a loss (reg fee is $7, sell them for $3-$5).
5) Read and learn.
6) Learn web design, programming, and SEO. Devoloped sites with traffic always sell for more than undeveloped / parked domains. If I got the domain ftra6urs.com up to 5,000 visitors a month plus good revenue from ads, it would sell for a hell of a lot more than most ccc.com domains.
7) Read and learn (and retain). Take notes if you need to.
8) Study what sells and for how much and where. A domain might fetch $100 here, $200 on Sedo, and $500 on EBay. PLus, what might sell on eBay for $50 might be junk elsewhere.
9) Read, learn, retain, take notes, and re-read.
