In my last post, I wrote a full biography on Philip Lester, the other author to The Amazing Book is Not on Fire. All information in the biography below comes from Wikipedia, YouTube, YouTube Wikia, and Tumblr.
Dan Howell Biography ~ Samantha Sharp
On June 11 1991, in Wokingham, Berkshire, Daniel James Howell was delivered into this world. Dan is best known for being a YouTube star from his channel, danisnotonfire, as well as being a radio personality on BBC Radio 1, and an author to the #1 New York Bestseller, The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire.
Dan had a rather happy childhood, mostly consisting of smiling and laughing, until he reached pre-school (or 'reception'), where he encountered the first negativity in his entire life because of meeting other children who enjoyed bullying Dan.
At the age of 5, Dan expressed a love for acting when he was cast as Santa Claus for his school play. When his parents noticed the joy that theatre brought to Dan, they immediately registered him in to a local theatre school, where he attended classes on Sundays.
Secondary school was a challenge for Daniel. He noticed that the other students looked down on happiness and joy, and used various homophobic slurs towards Dan to emphasise how much they despised seeing other individual's content. However, Dan decided to remain silent while he was being bullied, because he was open-minded enough to understand where the bullies' rage was coming from; whether it was rejection, or family issues. On a lighter note, Dan eventually managed to attain a small group of friends, and favourite teachers, which led to procrastination during exams. Dan enjoyed visiting a popular website, MySpace, where he began to look at photos of 'emos' and aspire to be like them. In addition to this, Dan frequently listened to music from bands such as My Chemical Romance and Muse.
After encouragement from friends at school, and Phil Lester (whom he met on Twitter), Dan uploaded his first video blog to YouTube which he titled, 'Hello Internet' on his main channel, danisnotonfire, on October 16th 2009.
After high school, Dan attended the University of Manchester in 2010, where he studied law, and occasionally made video blogs on YouTube. Upon realising that law is not what Dan wanted to pursue for the rest of his life, Dan dropped out of university to pursue his dream of becoming a video blogger. Dan lived with his best friend and fellow YouTuber, AmazingPhil (Phil Lester), and the pair moved to London together in July 2012, both channels continuously growing.
Dan reached 1,000,000 subscribers in 2013, and as of December 2015, has gained over 4 million more subscribers. On the 12th of September 2014, Dan and Phil created a joint gaming channel named, DanandPhilGAMES, where they upload videos of them playing popular video games together.
On 26th March, 2015, Dan and Phil announced the creation of their book, The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire, which was later released in the UK on October 8th 2015, and to the rest of the world on the 15th of October. The book managed to top the General Hardbacks Sunday Times, after over 26.7 thousand copies were sold in the UK in the first week of its release. It also became a #1 New York Bestseller in the young adult cover list of 2015. 
Good job! I have noticed that in both biographies, you have explained a great deal about (no, I do not sound English) the book that they both have published. Is this something you would recommend someone to read. Apart from it hitting the charts on very high scales, is this something you would personally like to share with others?
ReplyDeleteIn this book, "The Amazing Book is Not On Fire" what does it talk about? Is it a series of stories that link up, or just a novel. Or is it just bare experiences they have had during their lives, and from creating videos together? What is your part of the book? Since both of them are gamers, or at least seem to me like so, would they have illustrated the book by themselves in a manga style? Or does the book not have any illustations? If it does, what type would they be?
In Dan's biography, you mentioned he was bullied. Was it extremely bad? How so? Eventually to be able to be so successful in life, he must have gotten over the bullying unless he created the channel as a tool to help distract himself like some other YouTubers we would know. Would you know what the case was? How was he able to accomplish getting over the bullying? Now, looking back, what are Dan's views on this topic? Is there advice he gives in his videos apart from gaming advice?
Dan seems to be very happy now, with his book out. Would Phil and him be planning to write another one anytime soon? Perhaps a sequel? Any other plans for the future? Any signs of a movie/world tour or anything publicly?
Keep enjoying watching their videos and I hope they come visit Hong Kong so people like you can be able to meet them :)
Tarinee
Thank you for all of the questions! I would definitely recommend this book to others, although I'm afraid not everyone outside of Dan and Phil's fanbase would understand their sense of humour or the significance of the stories in the book. The book is a collection of funny stories throughout Dan and Phil's lives, both during their career and before they even met each other (Which, as I said earlier, may not appeal to all readers, but definitely appeals to all of Dan and Phil's fans).
DeletePersonally, my favourite part of the book is the segment which is filled with fanfiction! In case you didn't know, fanfiction is a fictional story written by a fan of a particular character(s)... and by the way, although Dan and Phil are, in a way, "gamers", they are more often referred to as "YouTubers".
The illustrations in the book are mostly photographs of them and old MySpace profile pictures, etc. Dan never mentioned the severity of his bullying, but I'm guessing it affected his esteem. However, I believe he managed to ignore the bullies when he found a group of friends later on in Secondary school... Dan was never bullied during University (at least as we know for now.) Dan is obviously completely against bullying, and in a video he posted several years ago, he mentioned that in University he used to wish he could "go back in time and punch those bullies in the face!" but he also mentioned that he realised that that wouldn't be a great solution, because he knew that the bullies were probably motivated by something else in their personal life.
The "phandom" (Dan and Phil fanbase) would definitely look forward to a second book, but realistically, I doubt it would be anytime soon, but probably at another milestone for them (another award, 7 million subscribers, 1 billion views, things like that.)
Dan and Phil haven't mentioned anything of a world tour as yet, but they do tour around the UK often for book signings and meet-ups for their fans.
Thank you so much for your comment!!