For those of you who started out on books (ex. Harmonica for Dummies). How would you rate your progress?

slow...but steady. Have been playing for a year now...straight harp but just recently learned how to bend all but hole 3. I Like shenandoah, Danny boy, Say something, all christmas songs, wilwood flower, over the rainbow, how great thou art..etc..
Dummies is a good tool..also just got blues for dummies..

Also have tried several harps in different keys. (hohner, lee oskar, seydel, suzuki)...and suzuki promaster is my favorite...

One of the most helpful things I came across was on wildflowerharmonica.com, learning the pentatonic scale. It's a simple 5 note scale, perfect for harp. By learning this scale you can pick out songs just by ear.

I posted tabs for several different positions.

I started out with a 12 hole Hohner Marine band harmonica that came with a book and an album, we didn't have the internet back in the early 70's, and most people where I lived believed that the harmonica was just a kids toy and not really an instrument. I consider myself an intermediate player. I think it depends on the person whether you can pick up a book and learn that way, you need to be able to push yourself to practice and learn but at the same time know when to step back and take a break so you don't burn yourself out or get discouraged. I think it helps if you have someone to help you, or have the internet to listen to especially when learning to bend so you know if you are getting the bends correctly, something that unless you have a good ear for music, you could be doing wrong but you think you are doing correctly.

I started with a 'Your first harmonica' type book. Although YouTube was available, I did not want to use as I wanted to be 'self-taught' (I know I had a book) and if I used YouTube was cheating.

It did take a fair amount of perseverance and around 6 months until I could play a tune that was vaguely recognisable to someone else (they got it within 3 guess haha).

That being said, I have managed to teach others what I did in 6 months in a 1 week. I have no regrets with taking the longer route. I feel like I am a better player for it - though obviously there is no way to measure that!