I didn't take lessons but started out only learning cords and hated it so much I quit for a while. Then later I found the Fast Tracks book by Hal Lenord. I don't know if they are too beginner level for you or not but they start you out playing simple songs in first position while learning to read the notes. As you go on they use more difficult songs, teach you about different techniques, and chords. I loved that book but found Hal Leonard Guitar Method, Complete Edition: Books & CD's 1, 2 and 3 to be more helpful because it is much longer, has you play different styles of music (it focuses more on blues), and it has a little section on scales and improvising. It teaches you the same way, by starting out simple and getting more difficult as you go along. The cd helped me a lot with learning the tempo to the songs and you can play along to it. It has two versions of each song, one slow and the next one is up to tempo. The only thing is this book doesn't have a lot of songs that use notes past the 9th fret.

I also bought the artist's tab books when I was at the beginner level but they just made me more frustrated and want to give up. They do make some that are labeled "easy guitar", I don't have one of those so I can't tell you anything about them. There are also some that come with a cd to play along to.

To learn to play in higher positions, and moving back and forth between different positions, playing the music from the artists I like helped a lot. It was much easier to play the songs after using the hal lenoard books. If you buy a book, I highly recommend buying one with a cd unless they are not helpful to you. There are also tabs at ultimateguitar.com if you don't want to buy a songbook but they may not be exactly correct.