About the Author
Alan Simon is the managing principal of Thinking Helmet, Inc., a boutique consulting firm that specializes in enterprise data management, business intelligence, and analytics.
He also teaches technology-related courses in the business school of a leading university. Alan also writes technology and business books … and novels … and does video courses … and used to be a farmer… .
When it comes to side hustles, Alan has been in the game since the dawn of his professional life in the early 1980s, when he started a consulting firm on the side while he was a U.S. Air Force officer. Even now, with what has traditionally been the “retirement zone” fast approaching, Alan has several new video series in development that will soon join his side-hustle portfolio.
Alan is a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and currently lives in the Phoenix, Arizona, metro area.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my wife, Erica Bianco Ellis, who has been my biggest supporter and inspiration since the day we met.
Author’s Acknowledgments
I would like to thank several people for their contributions to Side Hustles For Dummies. First and foremost, thanks to my wife, Erica, who is my chief editor and adviser for everything I write, as well as my coauthor on several of my novels. Erica has several of her own side hustles going, and her experiences provided great content and examples for this book. She also was a great sounding board for much of this book as I wrote it. To put it bluntly, and to say it once again: Everything I’ve written in recent years (not to mention my life) is better than it would otherwise have been, all because of Erica!
Thanks also to Steve Hayes, Zoë Slaughter, Elizabeth Kuball, and the great For Dummies team at John Wiley & Sons. I had just completed Data Lakes For Dummies when I came up with the idea for Side Hustles For Dummies. The team at Wiley liked the idea, and the rest is history. As always, they’ve been great to work with.
Thank you to my agent, Matt Wagner, of Fresh Books, Inc. The first book Matt sold for me was Data Warehousing For Dummies back in 1996 — in fact, he contacted me to let me know that the publisher was looking for someone to write that title. We’ve worked on many projects together since, including Side Hustles For Dummies.
Finally, thanks to Eden Lustig, a long-time friend who has also traveled the side hustle road, who served as the technical editor of this book.
Publisher’s Acknowledgments
Associate Editor: Zoë Slaughter
Project Editor: Elizabeth Kuball
Copy Editor: Elizabeth Kuball
Technical Editor: Eden Lustig
Production Editor: SaiKarthick Kumarasamy
Cover Photos: © Dragana Gordic/Shutterstock