Daphne Tonge

Daphne is the founder and CEO of Illumicrate, the UK’s first specialist book subscription box since 2015, and a wonderful community of avid book lovers. She is also the founder and Managing Director of Daphne Press, a new Science Fiction and Fantasy publisher.

She’s judged for book prizes and is an event chair. Previously, she was an award-winning book blogger. She lives in London, but is a Chinese-Filipino born and raised in Manila. She can usually be found fangirling over first editions & fictional princes, and recommending books on social media at: @daphlt.

‘All the different things you’re juggling need to be carried through by your passion.’

Can you just tell us a little about yourself and how you came to be where you are in publishing today? 

I always find it really odd to talk about myself — I feel like I’m bragging which goes against my Asian upbringing! But I feel so thankful to have achieved a lot in a short space of time in publishing — like being on the Bookseller 150 list last year which I wasn’t expecting at all and was such an incredible honour. 

I had a finance job for 15 years before I started Illumicrate. I loved books but never realised publishing was a career option until I started a book blog in 2011 at the height of YA fueled by Twilight and The Hunger Games. I was privileged to be London-based so I went to a lot of events in person and met other bloggers, authors and publishing professionals and learned more about the industry and how books are made. A few years later, subscription beauty boxes were on the rise and I wondered whether something like that would be possible for books. I had built up enough contacts to feel like I could both source books and create merchandise so decided to curate a box that spoke to like-minded readers and gave me a new way to connect with my book blogging audience. 

Initially, it was a quarterly thing that I did on the side of my day job until about three years later when I thought, ‘I really need to make a go of it properly or crash spectacularly.’ The arrival of my daughter and returning to work into our busy period meant that I was working 12-15 hour days for weeks at a time. Even with great managers and flexible working, it still meant that I wasn’t seeing my kid as much as I wanted, who had obviously become my biggest priority. I am lucky enough that I have a husband so we have two incomes which provides a bit of a safety net that a single-income household wouldn’t have. Being an accountant by trade, I still wanted to be able to support myself and my family in my new venture. That’s what I did — and we’ve grown from there.

And now with Daphne Press - what factors drove you to starting your own publishing company? 

I always feel like I stumble into things — not accidentally, but things do feel like they have a natural progression. Illumicrate came from book blogging, and the publisher, Daphne Press, has come out of the book subscription box. 

Ultimately, I wanted more creativity and flexibility in what we were offering our audience and it felt like a lot of the standard industry models weren’t able to do that. It was frustrating to be told that our ideas didn’t fit into business plans, weren’t familiar with the way we sell books and how close we are to our readers. I wanted the freedom to print and sell books however I wanted to. That was the crux of starting Daphne Press — publishing books creatively in a way that uplifts underrepresented voices. I also wanted to give science-fiction and fantasy (SFF) authors the option to find a home for their work because the genre, in terms of the UK market share, is still incredibly small. 

Because I had no background in traditional publishing, it was a really steep learning curve to figure it all out. I’d worked with Knights Of as a marketing consultant but I wasn’t as close to other key areas like acquisitions, editorial, and agents so I saw my expertise as more on the back-end of things, like marketing to our core audience. But it all slowly came into place and now we’ve got great support teams around us. Titan Books do sales on our behalf, we have amazing marketing and publicity freelancers who work on our campaigns, and we also have brilliant artists and designers that we work with to typeset our books and create our lovely covers. I feel like we’ve got into a rhythm now with a pipeline but we’re still a very new publisher — our first books only came out this year! It’s been incredible and so nice to see it all coming together.

How did you find balancing all those different aspects of your life? What do you wish you could tell your past self?

Oh gosh it is hard. I think your passion definitely has to get you through a lot of that initial period of trying to start something new. All the different things you’re juggling need to be carried through by your passion. Initially, my job was my primary source of income but I started Illumicrate because I really enjoyed running a business and picking books and getting involved with publishing. I obviously love being a mother and a wife and balancing my family life as well. I did not have a lot of time to myself at the beginning but I was okay with that because I knew that at some point, one of those three things would give and I wouldn’t be working in that way forever. I went forward knowing that if I could get Illumicrate to a certain place, I could give up my day job and be a bit more balanced. Essentially, I was not just working in my work hours but also in my free time, something which I think is very similar to writers early on in their careers who have a day job and do their writing on the side. I’m always in awe of all the writers that find the time to be creative and write as well as juggling a family and a day job with everything else in between.

‘A lot of learning to be a leader is learning to let go because you physically and mentally cannot do absolutely everything in your business and the business will not run with just you alone.’

Illumicrate has such an avid and loyal fanbase who absolutely love the monthly boxes you produce with special editions in collaboration with publishers. What do you think is the magic formula to making sure that you always stay ahead of the curve?

I think it comes down to the great team at Illumicrate. We’re an 18-strong team now and I honestly couldn’t do any of it without them. I hired my first employee, Caitlin, in 2018 and so much of the business has grown around not just my taste, but her and everyone else’s tastes as well. Everyone we hire is a passionate book advocate and I think having a mix of different preferences within the team throughout the eight years of Illumicrate has taught us a lot about what works for our audience. I don’t know if there’s a magic formula, but the team are all innovative and keen to explore new ways to present books to people. Illumicrate did the very first special edition box back in the day, which a lot of other companies now do, but we’ve since pivoted to different areas of the market such as romance and horror.  There’s this constant sense of innovation — learning what the market wants, testing it and coming up with new products to fulfil those demands. 

Your team is based all over the country, something that we’re seeing more and more of now in a bid to increase regional diversity and accessibility to our industry. How do you build a strong team culture without always getting that face-to-face in-person time and how would you say your personal style of leadership feeds into creating that environment of trust? 

Illumicrate has always been an online business in that we’ve never had offices or premises and so naturally, everyone we’ve hired has come from different parts of the UK and I think that’s one of our  strengths. There’s a lot of talent that goes underrepresented from different parts of the UK because publishing is still so London-centric. There are certainly challenges, but I like to think that our team ethos is very much that people can work as flexibly as they’d like - the pandemic certainly showed everyone that people can work from home effectively, this was something that I found lacking in my old job so something I really wanted to promote at Illumicrate. People work whatever hours they like, wherever they are, and that level of trust really helps with team and individual morale. I want people to work to suit their needs and requirements, be that the time they work best or looking after their health or their childcare arrangements. 

As for team bonding, we do see each other relatively frequently — we attend a lot of book events and so team members will go and spend time together. We usually have a team get-together once or twice a year and there are also opportunities to visit printers and suppliers so different members of the team get to have those experiences as well. Although we’re not always seeing each other in person, it’s nice when we do spend time together. Everyone who works for Illumicrate, myself included, is chronically online so we use a suite of tools to help us stay connected. It is tricky, but you just have to have trust in the team and faith that people enjoy their work — and it then becomes a lot less stressful. 

I’m definitely not the one to micromanage things now — I think I might have done when I first started the business and it was just me, but it is very different going from a one-woman business to now a team of 18. Once upon a time, I did each part of the business (on a much smaller scale) myself so I have a good understanding of what the different parts are. Hiring the right people is really key and learning how to delegate is essential. A lot of learning to be a leader is learning to let go because you physically and mentally cannot do absolutely everything in your business and the business will not run with just you alone. Naturally, you’ve got to trust the people with the things you’re letting go of and be able to give things to other members of your team so they can become leaders within their own teams as well. I think that kind of downwards-leadership culture can be seen all the way through our teams. The fact that I and all the other managers are working flexibly sets a precedent but also feeds through into other aspects as well. I never want to be holding on or holding up anyone’s ability to make their own decisions and come up with new and interesting things for the business to do. I mean, if everything had to come through me, we’d be here forever and nothing would get done. I’ve got to trust other people to make those decisions and those calls on my behalf — and they all do, very well. 

‘It’s been a privilege to be able to uplift marginalised voices.’

Illumicrate has a great online community with such an authentic connection to your audience — how do you think social media (BookTok, Bookstagram) has played a role in getting books into the hands of new readers? What are the triumphs and pitfalls of using social media to market books and build a community?

It’s funny because social media was one of the first things that I let go of when I began to build my team. I found it fun to run all those accounts but very taxing and so I hired Caitlin specifically to cover social media and customer support. Since then, we’ve hired a few more social media managers. I think it’s a great tool for publicity and marketing — there’s nothing that can get your book in the hands of as many people as social media can. Everyone uses it and it’s just so fast which means you can reach lots of people really quickly on a small budget, which is crucial in an industry where budgets for PR & Marketing are a lot smaller than others. 

TikTok has been absolutely incredible for selling books, and totally different from other platforms like Instagram and Twitter where people talked about books but that didn’t convert to sales. It might be because people film reactions and readers are able to get an opinion on a book very quickly. Back when I used to blog, I would tell people what I thought but they would have to read a whole review - and that was the same in traditional broadsheets or articles. Because you can build a community and get that feedback really quickly, social media has been an integral part of Illumicrate and Daphne Press’ success since we know exactly what our readers want and the types of books they’re looking for. It informs our acquisitions and what we choose to showcase for Illumicrate, but at the same time it can be hard to absorb some of the negativity as well. I tell my team all the time, ‘Don’t read all the comments. Try not to take things personally — it’s just an individual’s taste and it’s a lot easier to say bad things about a nameless entity.’ It is difficult and it can be demoralising to be able to know every single negative thing people think about your business, but I do think it’s more positive than not. 

Throughout your career, you’ve really championed writers from marginalised backgrounds through your work at Knights Of and now with Daphne Press. How have you found that process of advocating for BAME authors, and how has this informed the way you advocate for yourself?

It’s been a privilege to be able to uplift marginalised voices. I am on the advisory board for the Future Worlds Prize, which is a short fiction writing prize for authors of colour in the SFF space - and if there are any authors of colour reading this, you should absolutely consider submitting. There is a cash prize for the winner but the most invaluable part is the mentorship from an editor. It’s been really great to be a part of that and I’m hoping to do that more with Daphne Press. 

I’m very lucky as the publisher: I’m not coming up against the same barriers that I would if I were an editor at a bigger publishing house. It’s a really interesting position to be in because growing up, I only ever read white male fantasy because that’s all there really was. They were great books and absolutely fuelled my love for reading and the genre but within the past five years, SFF has really opened up to stories from authors of colour, queer authors and authors with disabilities. Despite that growth though, a lot of traditional SFF publishing does still appeal to a cis-male audience. With Daphne Press, I have the freedom to acquire the books that I want. It’s nice not to be coming up against an acquisitions meeting where the room is saying that we can’t buy that book because there’s already an Asian author on the list or that they don’t think stories from Central & South America will sell well in the UK market. One of our recent acquisitions was a Venezuelan-inspired fantasy, which is absolutely fantastic, called The Sun and the Void. It’s been a dream come true to build and give that space to the writers that need it. 

‘We love reading and acquiring books that celebrate different cultures and different points of view rather than focusing on just being marginalised.’

In that, do you think there’s anything else in publishing that could be improved on and changed when it comes to publishing marginalised voices? 

I think a lot of literary fiction definitely focuses on the angst of being a marginalised person which is certainly not what I’m looking for when I’m acquiring. It’s slightly ironic though because I think often fantasy readers have this sense that what really gets us lost in a narrative is a desire to feel some sort of literary pain. Not just because the narrator is a marginalised person of colour for example, but because they’re trying to save the world from an evil overlord who is threatening to kill them and all their loved ones. We love reading and acquiring books that celebrate different cultures and different points of view rather than focusing on just being marginalised. It is slowly changing, which is very hopeful, and I am definitely seeing more joyful stories, especially in the romance space. I’m hoping this joy does bleed into other areas a little bit more, especially for commercial fiction, and I certainly think fantasy is probably one of the better— if not the best — genres where representation is really shining through. It’s been great to see it in the past two or three years, and I’m just hoping that we’re a small part of that. 

Can you tell us about another woman in publishing who inspires you? 

I really look up to Aimée Felone. She was one of the founders of Knights Of and is now the Managing Director and is absolutely fantastic in her role. She really paved the way for independent publishers specialising in amplifying underrepresented voices. I think Knights Of single-handedly proved that there was a market for diverse children’s books and now a lot of other publishers are reacting to that and it’s been great for the industry as a whole. She’s so capable and is such a wonderful speaker. Everything she’s achieved with Knights Of — so many bestsellers and prize winners — has been so important to see within our industry. I hope they continue paving the way for underrepresented voices.