What book should I use to teach playing on a bass guitar?

How to go about teaching myself the guitar?

• I have started to teach myself how to play the guitar. I am teaching myself because I am a college student and cannot afford the money or the time to pay a private instructor to teach me. I have a guitar, and am in the process of finding a reputable book series to learn from. However, in my practice so far I have noticed a very important issue that arises from the lack of an instructor or teacher. So my question is: How should I arrange my long term practice plan? I am planning to continue to learn and explore until I become a fluent guitar player. So, should I learn a few chords right away? Or maybe I should learn alternative picking techniques first? Or maybe it would be best for me to tackle all my scales right now fresh out of the gate? Or maybe before any of that I should learn where all the notes are on the fretboard? And then once I've started, how should I progress? You can see my frustration. Now, obviously I would practice a lot of these in one session. But my question is what should I make sure to have down before moving on to something else. (In other words, Which Xs do I have to learn before going on to certain Ys). And then where should I go from there? I mean there seems to be a couple of wrong ways I could do this. (just an example) If I learn all the scales but don't know where any of the notes are on the fretboard, then I can't use any of the scales Any help here in planning my long term learning schedule would be much appreciated. (keep in mind, my end goal is to truly understand guitar playing, and to be fluent. I do NOT just want to play a few memorized songs and never know the notes behind it, or be stuck reading tab forever. Yes I can already read music, which is a plus, so I would love to apply that to guitar) Also, if you know of a reputable book series I could use, that would be awesome! And for fun, list your all time favorite guitar and what gauge strings you play on it :)

• Answer:

  just be your own mentor to teach yourself