Just like any other avocation, having a pet snake may either be a fun, rewarding experience if things go right, or it can be a frustrating and discouraging experience.  Hopefully, I can give you some helpful advice so that your experience can be pleasant.

There are three basic things you need to have a good experience raising a pet snake:

1. You need a good animal, one that is healthy, eats good, and has a good temperament.
2. You need a good environment for the animal so that it can thrive and maintain good health.
3. You need a source of sound advice to help you.

Let me help you on all three of these areas so that your experience with corn snakes can be rewarding.
First, how can you obtain that good, healthy corn snake?  Let me begin by explaining how you might get a not-so-good animal.  Corn snakes originated in the south eastern region of the United States, an area which also has a plentiful supply of wild lizards (anoles).  As a result, the diet of corn snake hatchlings in the wild is mostly small anoles.  But as snake breeders and owners we are trying to force these snakes to eat domestically raised mice.   In most cases, this works just fine, and the snakes start eating pinky mice from the get go. But for some snakes, the process is not so easy.  The babies want lizards and not mice.  So for these snakes the breeder must work with the animal to train it to eat mice, rather than lizards.  In most instances, this task can be accomplished, and the snake will eat mice just like the other snakes who took mice from the start.  In some cases, the breeder may simply get rid of these non-feeders by various means such as wholesaling them out to other people as inexpensive non-feeders. The dilemma for the new snake owner is that you don’t want to end up with one of these picky eaters.  Now let’s not get a picky eater confused with a normal corn snake that is shedding and refuses to eat for a good reason.  But trust me, you don’t really want a picky eater for your first snake.  You will pay $1.00 or more for pinky mice from the pet store and put them in the cage, and the snake will avoid the mouse like the plague.  The mouse smells bad, because of the way commercially raised mice are housed.  So you will keep trying to feed the snake, and keep throwing away all of these $1.00 pinkies that the snake refuses to eat.  Then you will ask for help and  someone that will explain how to get the picky snake to eat.  So you will try live pinkies and  brained pinkies, and maybe go so far as to buy a $8 bottle of  lizard scent.  By the time you are done, even if you get the snake to eat, you probably wish that you had never bought the snake in the first place.  So why not let the breeders worry about all the picky eaters, and lizard eaters, and using all of these exotic methods to get babies to start eating. Why not just buy a snake that will eat for you right from the start.  I agree, this is the way to go.
 So where can you go to find such animals.  The internet is a great place to go since there are many top breeders who’s philosophy is the same as mine.  We will not sell you a snake that has not voluntarily fed at least 3 times on regular frozen/thawed pinky mice.  So if we don’t have exactly the snake you are looking for  in stock, where else can you go?  Just email me at mark@moreptiles.com , let me know what kind of corn snake you are looking for, and I can probably give you some recommendations that will help you out if we don't have it.
If I were buying my very first corn snake, where would I go?  First of all, many pet shops are a bit risky in this area because the owners and employees are not familiar with corn snakes, and they may not even know if the animals are feeding properly.  Also, many of those wholesale non-feeders that the breeders unloaded will end up in pet shops.  So I were buying my first animal, it would be from a good supplier on the internet. Another thing of importance is to get a healthy animal.  Corn snake hatchlings are generally all disease free when they hatch from the egg.  Some do have defects called kinks that are caused by environmental factors (temperature and moisture) during incubation.  So the way that a healthy hatchling comes in contact with disease is in the housing or feeding after they are born.  Reputable breeders have control of the housing, food, and water to prevent the spread of disease, so you can be assured of getting a healthy animal.  Usually animals from shows are pretty healthy because of controls imposed by organizers of such events, but there may be a slightly higher risk than for animals from a reputable breeder.  Pet stores have a bad reputation in the industry for selling unhealthy animals, many of which were infected in the pet shop itself.
The second item on the list of “what’s needed” is a good environment for the animal.  The care sheets at our site give some good advice in this area.  Basically, what is needed is an enclosure that provides the proper bedding, temperature, food, water,  lighting, and very important, it must be escape proof.  There is nothing more troubling than having your new baby corn snake escape and on the loose in your house.
The third item on the list is a good source of advice.  I believe that your success and enjoyment of the new corn snake will be directly in proportion to the availability of good advice on all aspects of raising and caring for the snake.  The best situation is to have a reputable breeder as your source of advice, since we breeders seem to have experienced and solved most of the problems that a new snake owner is likely to see.  Breeders who are open and willing to help solve your problems are also more likely to be the reputable kind that will keep you as a happy customer.  In my case, I am always happy to answer questions I receive, so please feel free to email me any time.
Now why is it so important for me to focus on you having a good experience with your first corn snake?  The reason is that the success of this whole business, I mean the corn snake breeding and raising community, depends on first time owners having a good experience.  When you raise a healthy snake that eats good, and you really enjoy it, then you will probably recommend them to several of your friends and our community will continue to grow.