1. Read Bitcointalk forum daily
this! forget the rest!
you have to get your own feeling, what is good and what is bad. Don't listen to trolls. Don't blindly mine any new coins because in 99% you will get less on the exchange than you spent for the energy. That worked maybe last year quite well but now you have to have a broader view.
The only advice I can give you is READ, READ and READ. What coins are really innovativ? What coins have new ideas? What is a cheap clone?
If you are lucky you get a free or relatively cheap but precious stack. Don't invest anything in Mining hardware.
Why?
1. Mining will be less and less as it is wasting energy. There will be better ideas. And I am not only talking of POS.
2. If its a mineable coin you can buy the coins for the same amount or even cheaper after the first hype if many are selling off.
There may be one or two coins, that really require you to mine because they don't hit the exchange early, but even they can be bought relatively cheap in the trading forums. For example i have a very good CPU and was mining Monero at the beginning. I got about 200 since then. In the trading forums they were selling 1000 for 1BTC after 1 week. ATM you get 3BTC for the 1000 at the exchange and it will be probably 10folding the next couple of months.
