There are two kinds of business books that actually move the needle.
A positioning book establishes you as the authority in your field. It’s more thought-leadership than how-to — it shows readers how you think, what frameworks you use, and why your approach is different. The reader finishes it convinced of your expertise but still needs you to apply it. Think Good to Great or The Lean Startup — books that make you want to hire the author, not become them.
A prescriptive book gives the reader a clear, step-by-step path forward. It walks them through your methodology in enough detail that they could (theoretically) implement it themselves. The reader finishes it with a sense that they’ve started the work — and often returns to hire you for the parts they can’t do alone. Think Atomic Habits or Building a StoryBrand.
Both work. Which one you should write depends entirely on the business you want the book to drive.
If your service is highly customized and high-ticket, a positioning book usually outperforms. You don’t want readers thinking they can DIY it — you want them recognizing you as the only person who can do it right.
If your service is more productized or has a teachable framework at its core, prescriptive is usually the move. The book becomes both a demonstration of competence and a feeder for your courses, programs, or done-for-you services.
The mistake I see most often is people writing the wrong type for their business. Service businesses writing prescriptive books (and accidentally arming their prospects to DIY). Course creators writing positioning books (and frustrating prospects who came for the how-to).
Pick the one that matches what you sell. The book gets to do its job.
