I am also a newby here and read post after post on this site here, and all over the internet. The internet is so full of advice. I experimented with some bag seed and the paper towel method and I had nothing after almost a week. Now remember it was bag seed so who knows, they were probably old.. So I decided to put my first ever auto seeds directly in soil. I had three different ones. Dutch Passion Think Different, an Auto seeds ultra lemon haze and and Samsura Ultraviolet auto. A strange mix yes. I put them in the soil on saturday night at 10 pm. On Tuesday Pm the Ultra lemon popped up and then on Wed morning the other two popped up also.
I went this route as I was not very experienced in using the paper towel method and did not want my dumb ass to harm the seeds. So everything worked out well for me. I have always had great success using this method and was nervous as usually I have only grown bag seed. This is my first adventure in quality seeds and auto. So far the Think Different is a couple of days ahead of the others. I put them out in the Florida sun and them bring them inside under 100 watt equvilant cfls.
When in doubt do the natural thing one poster here said and I stopped my crazy thirst for knowledge there.. If you are not comfortable handling the seeds or soaking them due to inexperience like me, I would reccomend the directly to soil method.
The only thing I made a mistake on was leaving the Ultra lemon in darkness too long so it got too tall to support itself.
This is a great forum with so much experience and great advice and I look forward to my first auto grow.
