Let's suppose you want to learn Chinese mainly to read webnovels (or other reading material).
Now, personally, I recommend some study of pronunciation like pinyin, and watching some videos or reading some articles on tones and tone sandhi, grammar, hanzi and hanzi structure. Because at some point you'll probably want to listen too, speak too. So you know - use other resources to study the other skills! If you plan to do anything besides read eventually. Also, I think some pronunciation study actually helped me with remembering hanzi (the sound components in them) and reading skill.
But lets suppose you're studying mainly so you can read webnovels. Which is what I did in my first year. And you can set a goal to start reading webnovels within a year. For some people it takes as little as 3 months to start reading webnovels, for others like me it took around 6 months to start reading webnovels and 12 months to feel comfortable.
Download Pleco app and Readibu app. These apps will be your best friends. Pleco app is a dictionary tool so you can look up unknown chinese words, and it's Clipboard Reader area is where you can paste any chinese text into and then click-translate any words. I recommend the first time you look up any word, you press the dictate/speaker tool so you can hear how it's pronounced. You can save words in Pleco and study them using Pleco's built in SRS flashcards if you wish. Mainly though, the important part is using Pleco to look up words, read example sentences, and to use the Clipboard Reader area to read any Chinese text you find online. Pleco has an area to purchase graded readers, these will probably be some of the first things you read (if you choose to use paid resources). Readibu app is a click-translation Reader app for Chinese, you can browse the app for webnovels, or you can go to the Search area and paste in a url of a chinese webnovel, then Readibu will say it's not in the database so click 'search with Google' then you'll see the url as a result and click it, then bookmark the webnovel page in Readibu. From there you can click the open book icon on any webnovel, and it will make it just click-translate text and provide you the Readibu app features. Once you're reading a lot of webnovels, you may wish to use Readibu to read, for some people it will be more convenient than Pleco for going chapter by chapter.
Make a plan to start studying hanzi. I recommend you focus on the most common 1000-2000 chinese words, or the HSK 4 vocabulary, or both. The goal here is to get your vocabulary and hanzi recognition around HSK 4 level. I used this book (Tuttle Learning Chinese Characters: (HSK Levels 1 -3) A Revolutionary New Way to Learn and Remember the 800 Most Basic Chinese Characters) because it just clicked with me, I just read through it over a few months. You can use SRS flashcards (like Anki or Pleco) collections that people have made (I recommend this Mnemonics Simplified Hanzi Deck, or Mnemonics Traditional Hanzi Deck). For common words, I recommend Spoonfed Chinese anki deck (note it has some mistakes but I like that it has audio and sentence examples), but there's a ton of anki decks and common word frequency lists (you can genuinely just study a list) just pick a resource you like with either 2000 common words or HSK 4 vocabulary. Literally just pick any study materials where you can learn roughly 1000 common hanzi and 1000 common words or more. Whatever materials work for you. Study however you want - some people find anki flashcards useful (I just cram studied 1000 words for a few weeks each then never looked at anki again), some find books useful, some find textbooks useful, some use vocabulary lists, some use videos, just pick something. Your goal is going to be to study these words/hanzi in 3-6 months. 8-10 months if you want to wait to read longer, or need more time to study. I studied 800 hanzi in the book I linked for the first 3 months, then 1000 words the next month, then 1000 words the next month, then about 500 more hanzi the next month. It is okay to cram study! It is okay to not memorize these hanzi and words! Just get a basic familiarity! You are going to fully learn these common hanzi and words when you READ later.
As you are studying common hanzi and words, start reading a grammar guide if you would like some knowledge of grammar. Or watch some grammar videos on youtube, whatever clicks best with you. Basic Patterns of Chinese Grammar is a good grammar guide summary book, AllSetLearning Chinese Grammar Wiki is an excellent website you can read. I read another grammar guide summary, the website no longer exists. Again, do not try to memorize and drill this stuff, just go through it and get a basic familiarity. You can move on if a particular grammar point makes no sense right now. Learn about grammar the same time you're studying hanzi and common words, so the first 3-6 months.
Okay it's been 3 months! You know some hanzi (maybe 50-500), you know some words (maybe 50-1000 depending on how intensely you've been studying)! Start reading! You're going to start with Graded Readers, which are reading material made for learners. Heavenly Path's Comprehensive Reading Guide suggests some free graded reader resources in the Below 1000 characters section. I used Mandarin Companion Graded Readers and other graded readers I could purchase in Pleco. Mandarin Companion has some graded readers with 50 unique characters. I started with some Pleco graded readers that had 300 unique characters, then moved up to graded readers with 500-800 unique characters. Read graded readers! Reread them! Look up any words you don't know (using Pleco or something else). Listen to the pronunciation of any new words. If reading in Pleco, you can use the Dictation tool to hear the sentences read aloud. When using graded readers in general, use any audiobooks that accompany them. Mostly though just read, read, read, and look up anything you want. Look up grammar points in something like AllSetLearning Chinese Grammar Wiki if you are now starting to see some grammar that confuses you while reading. The reading practice is what is going to teach you the words you've been studying in other materials.
Now it's been 6 months. You've been working your way through graded readers of increasing unique character count (and are now reading graded readers of at least 800 unique characters or more). You've been working your way through studying common hanzi and words, and now have studied at least 1000 words or more. (If you cram like I did, you probably have studied over 2000 words but only the 800-1000 words in your graded reading material have been 'fully learned' and the other words you studied are only vaguely familiar, this is perfectly fine). Go to Heavenly Path and start reading the stuff they recommend for people who know 1000-2000 characters. I think @秃秃大王 by 张天翼 is perfect for people who know around 1000 characters to start with. You can keep reading some graded readers like those that go up to 1500-2000 unique characters if you'd like, but start trying to read novels for native speakers too. Again, I recommend anything in the easiest 'recommendations' from Heavenly Path's recommendation list of webnovels, a lot of novels for children will be perfect at this point. You'll gradually work on increasing the unique characters of your reading materials. Read in Pleco or Readibu so you can use the click-translate tool. To find webnovels online, paste or type the chinese name of the novel (and author if you know it), and then 'zaixian yuedu' like this '秃秃大王 张天翼 在线阅读'. It is very easy to find novels online in chinese.
From here you just continue reading more difficult novels! Go at the pace you choose! Once you're reading stuff with 2000 unique characters, then if you wish you can stop studying hanzi and common words outside of just looking them up in reading. You can of course continue to study hanzi and words outside of reading. But if you'd rather just learn words by looking them up as you read, you can start doing that as soon as you switch to novels for native speakers (1000-2000 characters). Congrats, you are reading webnovels!
Some people start reading webnovels within a few months, and you can start with a higher unique character count if you wish. Such as starting with MoDaoZuShi or Zhenhun or SaYe as soon as you go from graded readers to regular novels. The difficulty curve will be a lot steeper, and you'll be looking up a LOT of words for a while. But other people have done it. I started reading webnovels around 6 months, after doing graded readers for a while, and it took picking several easier and harder reading materials until I found a comfortable reading level to continue from.
So it boils down to: start studying very common words and hanzi (a list, a book, anki, whatever works for you, and you don't have to memorize just get some Exposure some Basic Familiarity), read about grammar if you wish (again just get some Basic Familiarity so later if you need to look up a grammar point in depth as you read, you know what to look up), and START READING ASAP. Use Pleco and Readibu to read with click-translations of words. Start with graded reader materials, then as soon as you can tolerate move on to novels for native speakers. Heavenly Path's website is a great resource for finding reading material at your level if you have no idea what to pick and don't want to trial and error different webnovels until something is doable. For anyone who finds sounds help with memory (like me) or who plan to eventually learn to listen to chinese, listen to the pronunciation of any new words when you look them up. If you watch cdramas, cdramas often have chinese subtitles on them, those can be good practice for reading as well.
You can start reading within a year. You can read graded readers within a few months, as soon as you feel it's tolerable. And then you can just learn new words BY reading, review words you've looked up before BY reading, review grammar BY reading, and work your way up to reading whatever webnovels you want. I find learning words BY reading much easier for myself, doing what I want to do in the language as I'm learning to read, much easier to stick to and enjoy than anki flashcards or word lists or textbooks. So from me, the suggestion to push yourself to read graded readers ASAP is so you can get to the part of learning BY reading quicker.
