Would it be best if I just jump into the Mini Stories? Im looking at the course “Greetings and Goodbye’s” and it looks like there are so many letters put together and LingQ only counts it as one word. I thought each individual character would be a lingQ of its own. haha this might sound like a stupid question. Sorry.
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I read through Mini Stories 1-10 and went through a few vids on YouTube (Japanese from Zero) when I got started.
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I have not learned Japanese myself, so of course feel free to ignore this :), but I would probably read Harry Potter 1 in transliteration, then the mini stories, and would leave the writing for a while (just like with pinyin in Chinese, I would learn the characters afer a few months of using a script for English speakers) 
But this is just my own style :), hope this helps!
The Japanese Harry Potter is actually pretty advanced, even for native speakers. I don’t think you’d get much out of it as a total beginner. Easy manga like yotsubato would be a better choice for authentic material imho
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I think even if you are completely beginning level in Japanese, from the beginning, you may as well find your own interest in japan or japanese culture. Then you intend to find out your own material including beginning materials which is related to your interest.
In my cases, I have just kept listening to or reading all kinds of stuff that looked like to become compelling material to me. so first of all, why don’t you find out something that you might be going to feel like “wow, a lot of fun and joyful things lie in this material.”
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As yes! If you have never read Harry Potter before, then it is a big jump for a beginner. But personally, I have read them many times and know the story inside out, so when I read it in chinese (in pinyin), I actually found it quite easy :))
Japanese is melodic. Learning the language will be more effective if ace sits down to watch cartoons, movies in Japanese, you can listen to songs or even watch TV shows. My seven is learning Spanish. We already have a number of subscriptions to the Viidea lessons. For convenience, we installed a TV set-top box https://www.infomir.eu/ and watch video tutorials on the TV. So even in the background when I’m cooking or the kids are playing we have sounds Spanish.