Memoir, how-to or thought leadership: choosing the kind of book

The three kinds, side by side

Scribe Media's guide What Kind of Book Should You Write? splits nonfiction by intent: the knowledge-share book, written to help readers solve a problem or create a transformation, and the memoir, a book about you told to move or entertain. We split knowledge-share books in two, because a book that teaches a method and a book that argues for an idea are planned differently.

Memoir

A memoir is your story, told for the reader. That sounds like a contradiction, but it is the whole craft. Scribe's guide puts it bluntly: "Nobody reads your memoir to learn about you." Readers come to learn something about their own lives through yours.

Two things follow. First, a memoir needs a reader just as much as a business book does: the person living through something like what you lived through, or about to. Second, a memoir does not instruct. Scribe's guide advises letting readers draw their own conclusions rather than telling them what to take away.

Do not worry about whether yours is a memoir or an autobiography. The usual line is that an autobiography covers a whole life and a memoir covers a part of one; Scribe's article on memoir vs autobiography argues that for most authors there is no meaningful difference. Choose the part of your life that carries the insight, and leave the rest out.

Memoirs can still be built around the reader. Army veteran Devin Fish wrote Answering the Hard Questions on deployment, and his story on scribemedia.com describes a memoir containing 150+ "Questions only the reader can answer". It stays a memoir, his story, while handing the reader the work of applying it.

How-to

A how-to book teaches a reader to do something they cannot do yet: plan a retirement, run a meeting, recover from an injury, hire a first employee. It is the most straightforward kind to position, because the promise is concrete and readers search for the problem directly.

The risk is sameness. There are many books on most practical problems, so the how-to book lives or dies on its difference: a narrower reader, a method tested on real people, or a sequence nobody else has laid out. That is why comparable titles matter so much here.

Your story still belongs, as evidence. Timothy Arrigo's The Inside Out Method is laid out as a sequence readers work through, and his story describes him putting his most difficult experiences in the book deliberately, because he was asking readers to do the same work. The story serves the teaching.

Thought leadership

A thought leadership book makes an argument. It names a problem in a new way, shows why the usual answers fail, and proposes a better idea. The reader finishes thinking differently, and the author becomes associated with the idea.

Neil Thanedar described this directly in his story on scribemedia.com: "I think the books are a way to own an idea." His book argues for one idea, a Y Combinator for politics.

The risk with thought leadership is vagueness. "Leadership is about people" is not an argument; everyone agrees with it. A thought leadership idea should be something a reasonable person could disagree with before reading the book. Chris Belchamber's book, according to his story, argues against what he calls a false choice, that higher returns require higher risk. That is a claim with an opponent.

Thought leadership books still need a practical layer. Readers who accept the argument will ask "so what do I do?" Plan at least the final third of the book to answer it.

How to choose: five questions

Scribe's guide suggests a set of questions. Our version:

1. What is my main goal? Business goals usually point to how-to or thought leadership; personal or legacy goals usually point to memoir. The idea guide lists the six common goals.
2. Am I teaching a specific skill or result? If yes, it is a how-to book. If you want to change minds, thought leadership. If you want readers to feel and reflect, memoir.
3. Which shelf do I picture it on? Business and self-help, or memoir? Pick one BISAC heading as a test. If you cannot choose, the book may be two books.
4. What is the book's one job? Scribe's guide insists on one primary job per book.
5. What will the reader walk away with? A skill, a new view, or an experience. Write it in your promise.

The guide gives a useful example of the same author doing both: Michael Singer's The Untethered Soul, which teaches, and The Surrender Experiment, which tells his own story. Similar material, two books, two different jobs.

How much of your story belongs in it

In how-to and thought leadership books, the question is not whether to include your story but how much. The Scribe Method's chapter How Much of Your Story Should Be in Your Book? gives the rule: include just enough of your story to help the reader get what they want from the book. Its test for each story is one question: does this story add value for the reader?

• Too much story turns the book toward the author's achievements and struggles, and readers who came for help drift away.
• Too little story leaves the book flat. People learn through example, and your own experience is often the most convincing example you have.
• Vulnerability should serve the reader. The chapter's advice is to speak from your scars, not your open wounds: share lessons from experiences you have processed. A book is not a therapy session.

Context matters too. The chapter notes that a story about going bankrupt can build credibility in a book about financial success, and would feel out of place in a gardening book.

Once you know the kind of book, the rest of the decisions get easier: the reader, the promise, the comps and the outline all follow. The book idea starter asks for your goal first and checks that your reader fits it. If you would like to talk it through, Scribe Media, which makes this site and sells book coaching and ghostwriting, has a free call.