There are countless domain name registrars, Godaddy.com and Namecheap.com are popular, they all have new domain name incentives, knowing you may be a repeat customer for years, do a search for coupon codes before buying. Many get their domain names bundled with paid hosting account, some try to avoid this since some hosts may hold your name hostage to prevent you from changing hosts (they can legally do this for the first 60 days, 1and1 is a company known for dirty tactics)

for your purposes it will probably suffice to use it with a free web site host, Google's Blogger.com is one example with no paid upgrades comment and reply support built in.

You can get a domain for $1 at 1and1. Visit: http://bit.ly/1sg9xBu ....There are other registrars as well. But now 1and1 has a promotion, where you get one domain off.

To answer your questions:

Yes, you can buy a domain name and just own it. And when you want you can get a hosting for it, but you dont have to invest anything yet if you dont want to develop it for a few months. It is wise to get the domain asap, cause sometimes they get picked up the names. Like my brother waited 1 month and his company name domain was bought so he had to go with dashed alternative.

As I told you can get just the domain, you just type in the name what you want. The one dollar offer is for .com and .net extensions only, but if it is a book name it is probably long so wont be taken.

There are few process which is normally used to select the best hosting services. First thing is to search about it and gain the knowledge as much as you can, once you gain knowledge regarding this then probably you are able to select the best one among them. After searching it start comparing it with each other in for different things just as price, services, space etc etc. this things gives you clear idea to purchase a domain name.

You can purchase a domain name from b3website.com for