The information and data included in self-help and business books often intersect, especially in their shared advice for readers on increasing productivity, finding meaning in work, and creating lasting relationships. Never Eat Alone is no exception. Like Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), which the authors cite a number of times, Never Eat Alone provides readers with actionable skills and techniques that promise to enhance the reader’s ability to make meaningful connections within and beyond their field or industry.

The self-help genre is a non-fiction category of literary composition. The form can vary from book to book, but generally, a combination of anecdotes, lists, tasks, and advice populate the chapters. Typically, the authors address the audience in singular, second-person pronoun “you” or plural, first-person “we” when offering advice. Ferrazzi, whose perspective governs the book, uses the singular, first-person “I” when writing his own stories. Because books of the genre are therefore frequently highly personal, the tone in these texts is often conversational and less dense than fictional or academic prose.

The authors title one of the first subsections in the book “Self-Help: A Misnomer” to inform the audience that their text will be both familiar and unique to readers accustomed to the conventions of the genre.