Well, I'm currently taking Chinese at my university but my professor gave us these great websites for beginners like myself
Help to pronounce chinese, also called pinyin:
Interactive Pinyin Practice: www.pinyinpractice.com
1-on-1 Mandarin Chinese Lessons: www.echineselearning.com
For choosing the right characters when writing:
http://zhongwen.com/
For character writing:
Free Animated characters: http://www.csulb.edu/~xie/azi/page1.htm
E-stroke: http://www.eon.com.hk/estroke/ (demo download)
Oh, as for books try chinese for dummies it helps ALOT!
If you need any help, just email me at anytime!
Or reply to me!
希望這有助於！(Hope this helps!)