I'd recommend setting yourself up something that you can afford to completely fuck up on, like a squidoo lense, blogger/wordpress site or a facebook page (both of which can gain page rank), pick a niche that you can write, install some kind of analytics software and attempt to get it ranked.
You'll learn more from a month of doing that than you would in 4 months reading crappy ebooks and beginners guides.
Try to remember that those that can DO those that can't TEACH! Simply put, 90% of what you find in those guides is either out of date or made up. (That said, it's still worth reading what goes on at BHW, but always take it with a LARGE grain of salt)
Once you've got a bit of traffic and a steady stream of analytics coming in you'll be able to see how the business actually works, then you'll begin to notice just how much crap is said on the various black hat forums and I'd say you're ready to begin with a proper site then
Or if you're a real jammy sod like me, what you can do is fall into a job doing SEO knowing nothing and learn on someone else's clock
(Not as lucky as it sounds though, you would not believe how little the people providing business to business training know about the market!)
