There are all sorts of places you can get space. I use 1and1.com. The cost is $4/mo and that includes the domain name. See this page for details on the various packages:
http://order.1and1.com/xml/order/Hos...op&__lf=Static
Which one you choose depends on your space, bandwidth, and business needs.
I don't use any of the more advanced features like MySQL and such, but it is available. And if you plan on selling stuff from the site, you want to look for a package that includes a shopping cart of some kind.
As far as writing the pages themselves, I write everything out longhand via a text editor. There are lots of authoring programs out there that will do that drudgery for you. Once the files are built, just FTP them to the site.
Since it sounds like you want to use at least part of this for hot linking images (have the image located on your server, but appear in other websites such as eBay, RCM, etc), you want to make sure the host you select allows this. Some do not allow hotlinking (mine does).