Hello,
A good place to start for beginners is NiceHash. You will in fact sell your hashing power to buyers and you will get paid in BTC. Another place like this is minningpoolhub.
Cloud mining isn't mining! It's about time people stopped inviting others to join this unprofitable business that's taking advantage of people who can't do math and are too lazy to do some research.
If you want to mine an actual altcoin and not indirectly mine BTC via nicehash
https://whattomine.com/ is a good place to check whats best to mine for what hardware you have.
Like the other guys said, cooling is very important.
Oh yea, another one...
Indirectly mine? Meaning you give your money to someone else and believe that person is going to mine for you. How is that different from gambling?
First rule of cryptocurrencies - you control your private keys.
OP if you want to mine yourself try something that's cheap and easy like HDD -based cryptocurrencies. For example burst. THe setup won't cost you much and won't consume a lot of power. If you like the idea you'll easily be able to increase your mining power or sell the equipment and buy a gpu rig or anything else.