The Side Hustle Bible – Scam or Legit Six-Figure Opportunity? [Review]

What Is The Side Hustle Bible?

Overview

The Side Hustle Bible is a book by the eccentric millionaire James Altucher that covers 177 different ways to make money on the side.

It has a lot of focus on passive ways to make money, so the name The Side "Hustle" Bible might not be the greatest choice--since "hustle" usually implies something that takes a lot of work.

But anyhow, the book is 372 pages and is jammed packed with a lot of good information, although it isn't the greatest choice if you are looking for a lot of details on specific opportunities.

The cost of the book is free, but as I'll go over in a bit... it's not really 'free' in every sense of the word.

To begin this review let's go over the sales pitch a bit, which is over-the-top and really hypes up this book to no end.

The Sales Pitch

Since you are reading my review, chances are that you came across one of the somewhat ridiculous sales pitches for The Side Hustle Bible.

The one I came across promoted the book as as revealing 177 "secretive" six-figure income opportunities that can earn you passive income for the rest of your life.

*Note: There was a text version of the sales pitch also and there are probably different variations out there.

Apparently the book is an "extremely limited release". That's what it states above the video and below it reads that there are "limited copies available"... but this is more than like likely just a marketing stunt.

You can also see the quote from a "happy and now-retired reader" who states that "I made $1 million in 92 days and retired".

Sounds pretty awesome right? 

You can make $1 million in 92 days and you are lucky enough to get this opportunity before the "limited copies available" run out.

In the sales pitch he talks about this guy who make over $1 million in 92 days, whose name is supposedly Trevor Chapman.

However, there is no verifiable proof of this guy and the story James tells, so who knows how true it is.

It also doesn't help that the video testimonial from "Denise Chapman" (Trevor's wife) seems to either be fake or at the very least heavily scripted...

That said, there is another testimonial from a woman named Amy Morris that seems to check out. 

I've looked into her and there are interviews, articles, and more about how she earns money from her "side hustle".

However, there is definitely no proof or anything suggesting that she was able to start generating this side-hustle income from reading James' Side Hustle Bible... so it's kinda like saying "hey, look at this person that makes all this money... now go buy my book that shows you how to make money". The two aren't as closely related as it may seem.

Typical Over-hyped Sales Pitch

As I'm sure you are well aware, the sales pitch makes this book sound like the greatest book to exist, which is probably why James decided to name it a Bible.

One of the claims that I have a big issue with is that of being able to make money with any of the 177 income opportunities discussed as soon as tomorrow..

This is very misleading and simply is not going to happen... but I guess I should have expected something like this. After all, all of James' other financial products are marketed in similar fashions.

Some of the other rather over-the-top claims that have been made include that with this book you will be able to...

• "Pay your mortgage for life using one of the most secret new income opportunities in America. "
• "Retire in 100 days or less using the fastest growing business opportunities in the world."
• "Upgrade your income to executive levels using a little-known “social review” trick."
• "How to earn $23,500 in 45 minutes."

While there is some truth to these claims and it's not like James is lying about them, he sure knows how to butter things up in a way that sounds magical and amazingly easy.

One thing you have to realize is that selling people on products like this is how James makes a significant amount of his money.

What You Get

The Book

The main thing you are getting here is obviously the book, The Side Hustle Bible, which is a 372 page book that includes 177 "secretive" income opportunities.

However, these aren't really "secretive" income opportunities as is mentioned in the marketing material... but many are somewhat little-known by the general public.

While the book is described as a step-by-step guide and blueprint, this is a pretty big exaggeration in my opinion.

It's 372 pages and covers 177 different opportunities... that means that just over 2 pages are dedicated to each opportunity on average. And that's without factoring in the Table of Contents and whatnot. All in all, this is far from being a blueprint and basically just gives you little information on a bunch of different opportunities that exist.

Bonus Gifts

In addition to the main book here, James also throws a bunch of bonus gifts into the "free" offer. These might not be the same at the time of you reading this, but as of this review there are 5 bonus gifts which include:

1. The Bestseller Blueprint - This is another book James put together, this time specifically about writing books and self publishing them, which you can potentially make a lot more money doing. This is actually covered in The Side Income Bible but this goes much more in-depth.

2. The Five Best Retirement Jobs in America - Another book here. This one is about 5 jobs that allow you to work when you want and are his top picks for retirement.

3. Your Side Hustle Quick-Start Guide & Workbook - This workbook is designed to help people go from having a side-hustle business idea to actually taking action on it and making money.

4. Free Ticket to See The Altucher Show - You will get a free ticket to attend one of his live shows.

5. Free Skype Call - As its listed right now, you can get a free Skype call with him and two special guests (unnamed at this point) "this spring".

Why this spring? Well, I'm not sure, but my guess is probably because that is a long way away and he is likely hoping that most people will forget about it and/or not take him up on the offer... because having Skype calls with everyone and answering questions would be pretty time consuming.

Newsletter

As far as I can see this book is only available if you subscribe to The Altucher Report, which is a financial newsletter by James that updates subscribers on new income opportunities, which are usually flexible and geared toward living a "freedom lifestyle".

I have seen talk online about this book being sold on Amazon, but as I'm writing this it isn't any longer. 

I'll go over the cost of subscribing in a bit.

Who Is James Altucher... and Is That a Wig?

He is a lot of things. Some of his notable achievements, as mentioned on his Wikipedia page, include being a:

• Bestselling author with over 20 books published
• Hedge fund manager
• Multimillionaire who started (or helped start) over 20 businesses
• Very successful podcaster 

James is often referred to as an eccentric millionaire and is known to say a lot of crazy things.

He once wrote about how he thinks college is a scam and also was calling Bitcoin a Ponzi scheme... but then shortly after releasing his cryptocurrency-focused newsletter that was largely about Bitcoin and similar opportunities.

He's rich, he's smart, but sometimes he says some pretty crazy and controversial things.

Is The Hair Real?

I know everyone is wondering if his hair is actually real or not (well maybe not). 

In its unkempt appearance it seems like it could almost be fake, like a wig of some sort. 

However, it does seem to be real... and the wild look of it goes perfectly with all the wild predictions that James makes.

Addressing the Con Man Allegations

If you do some research on this guy for even a couple minutes on Google you will likely come across some sort of information related to him being a con-man or a scammer, such as this article on Medium aptly titled Is James Altucher a Con Man?.

Is he though?

Well, the answer is open to opinion... and in my opinion not really.

The way I see it is that his somewhat ridiculous marketing tactics are what has got him in this situation of being called a scammer.

He's a smart guy and he sure knows how to market his products. But sometimes it seems he gets a little carried away... he gets a little too creative and colorful with his marketing approaches and they become deceptive, misleading, exaggerated, unethical, etc.

What this leads to is a bunch of people buying into the hype who are soon disappointed in the products they bought into... and then call him a scammer, con-man, etc.

On second thought... he does kinda con people into buying or subscribing to his products by misleading them...hmmm...

The Cost

When something sounds too good to be true then it probably is. This old saying works out most of the time and this is one of those times.

It obviously sounds way too good to be true that Mr. Altucher is just going to give you all of this stuff for free.

You are going to have to sign up for The Altucher Report, which is his main financial newsletter that goes out every month... even if you don't want it and are just looking to get the "free" book.

Confusion About Price

In the first page of the sales pitch I was told that I was going to get an "incredible deal of $49" to subscribe to this newsletter...

However, on the subsequent page I was told that my "special discounted price" was $79...

What the heck is going on here?!

OOOHH... I see now. I'm being pushed to purchase the "BEST DEAL" subscription.

There are 3 different subscription levels from what I'm seeing:

• BEST DEAL - $79
  • Digital download plus print subscription + his book Choose Yourself as a bonus
• Basic Subscription - $49
  • Digital download only
• Premium Subscription - $129
  • Digital download plus print subscription

*Note: The "Premium Subscription" is a joke... likely just a marketing stunt. As you can see it costs more than the "BEST DEAL" subscription and provides you with less. 

Money Back Guarantee

The good news with all of this is that, although you are forced to subscribe to The Altucher Report in order to get his Side Hustle Bible, you have 12 full months where you are able to receive a full refund, as you can see here...

As far as it is stated you should be able to get a refund without any reason as to why you are requesting it. You could even subscribe just to get the "free" Side Hustle Bible and then request a refund immediately after doing so.

HOWEVER, it seems that things aren't quite as easy as they seem... and getting that promised refund within 12 months is more difficult than we are led to believe (I'll go over some complaints about this soon!).

Who It's Best For

This book is not for someone looking for actionable steps and a blueprint for starting a side hustle. While it does provide some information and steps for getting started with the different side hustles mentioned in the book, the information provided is very brief.

As mentioned, the book is 372 pages long and covers 177 different opportunities, which means there isn't a lot of focus on any one opportunity.

That said, while it may not be for everyone, it is a great book for those looking to get the gears turning... get the mind thinking about what they can potentially do as a side hustle for extra money... and then they can seek further information from other sources in order to take action.

Customer Reviews/ Complaints

There aren't any customer reviews I can find for the Side Hustle Bible book. I've done quite a bit of research and the best I can find are just reviews written to promote it, but nothing from real customers.

HOWEVER, what I do want to go over are complaints about James Altucher's company here, which there are a lot of.

The company behind all of this is Choose Yourself Media. This is James' company.

When I started looking into it, right off the bat things weren't looking all that great. They have a F rating with the BBB (that's the worst possible rating) and are not accredited (not that this matters much).

And when I started looking at the complaints things got even worse.

1. Not Able to Get Refund

One of the first complaints I saw was about the refund... which this person has tried to get without any success...

But one complaint about having trouble getting a refund isn't that bad, right?

Well, the problem is that there are more.

This person talks about the same problem... trying to get a refund but having no success contacting the customer service team, which seems to be pretty bad.

And there are more. The same story for this person... no response after trying to contact customer support for a refund again and again...

2. Bombarded With Promotions

In the one complaint shown above the person also talks about The Altucher Report being a "continual infomercial", which is actually a pretty good way to describe it.

Yes, James does provide some very good information in his newsletter and there are people that are satisfied, but he does push a lot of promotions onto his subscribers as well and there are complaints about this.

3. Misleading Marketing

As expected, there are also complaints about the ridiculous marketing that goes on here--in which people are lured into subscribing to his newsletter and other things with some sort of teaser...

Pros v Cons

Pros

• "Free"
• Long list of 177 opportunities
• Great resource for getting the mind thinking about various ways to make a side income
• Written by a multi-millionaire who helps people make money for a living

Cons

• Over-hyped marketing material that is misleading
• Have to subscribe to The Altucher Report which costs money
• Lots of promotional material with The Altucher Report and even in The Side Hustle Bible
• Complaints about there being trouble getting a refund

Final Thoughts - Worth It or Not?

It would be nice if this book and his newsletter were marketed in a more honest fashion, but they aren't. Instead, James goes for the over-hyped, deceptive, and misleading approach to lure in new customers.

Wouldn't it be nice? And forget about those bonuses! How about just lower the price in the first place? If he is able to throw in bonus after bonus like this and still stay in business then something is wrong here.

That said, if you are able to look past the deceptive marketing practices used here and focus on The Side Hustle Bible itself then there is good value. After all, it's a free book that provides you with 177 ways to make money on the side... some really good ideas here that will likely peak your interest and get your imagination going.

Ya, it stinks that you have to subscribe to The Altucher Report. It would be nice if this were an option and not a requirement... but hey, he has to make money somehow and can't just be giving a bunch of things away for free.

And hopefully they honor the refund policy if you decide to request your money back! This is still a major concern of mine. Unfortunately it seems like a lot of the financial newsletters out there have issues giving people their money back... for example I reviewed Nova X Report as well and there was the same complaint with this one.

Anyways... I hope you enjoyed my review and found this information helpful. Hopefully you have a better idea of what you are getting into if you decide to get The Side Hustle Bible.

Before you leave, something you may want to take a look at since you are looking for side-income is how I make a living working online, which I have been doing since 2015 with this program.

Alternatively you can check out my top income ideas or a big list of 70+ ways to make money from home to get you thinking.