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Mastery Journal for Marketing Strategies for Entrepreneurs:

After meeting with my advisor this month, I had gotten eh chance to discuss my venture Tide & Tale Storytelling. My long-term vision for my venture is that I want to develop a hybrid creative studio that blends emotional storytelling and brand clarity, specifically tailored to indie authors, and small businesses. I offer a variety of services after pivoting and making changing to my business venture. My business will offer a ‘done-for you’ type of writing service for bios, website copy, character backstories, and ghostwriting. I also introduce newer service expansions such as brand voice coaching and narrative strategy, which will focus on helping clients connect with their audience and communicate their value and tone with clarity. 

I had pivoted my business multiple times; I explained that I no longer wanted to keep my branding work and fiction storytelling separate. I’ve found a unique niche in combining the two, which used emotionally resonate storytelling to re-shape a brand messaging. I also introduced commissions as a supplementary income stream, allowing me to write short stories for individual clients, based on their prompts and characters. He explained that it may be a good idea to keep the two separate as separate entities, so I do not confuse my audience. If someone is looking for an advertising copy, and they go to my webpage and see a book about fantasy or something not related to what they need, they may get confused. He expressed that it may also be a good idea to do separate websites. I will certainly take this to heart since the advice makes reasonable sense and I don’t want to scare potential clients off. There is a way to combine storytelling with advertising as I learned from my BFA in Creative Writing program, but when starting out, I may keep these separate at first. But once I gain more experience and my writing style becomes more well known, I may combine the two once people get a feel of who I am and the type of entrepreneur I strive to be for my creative studio. 

I also brought up a long-term dream: opening a coffee shop combined with a bookstore. While it’s a meaningful idea to me, my advisor rightly pointed out that it should stay on the back burner until I’m fully prepared to be dedicated. Opening a retail location comes with high startup costs and shifting logistics, and including food and beverage in that means I also have to worry about the Health and Safety department, renting out a physical location, paying first month and last month rent, utilities, and the décor for the inside of the building as well as the machines I would need to invest in and furniture. I would also have to hire employees, and worry about who will be working and if employees get sick, benefits, etc. This would be a drastic change compared to my freelance model which has a low overhead cost. 

Lastly, I was reminded to leverage Full Sail Alumni sources, and current student resources. Current student resources includes LinkedIn learning, and the alumni program as Creative resources for their graduates who graduated already with a previous degree. These programs can help me continue building my hybrid business with confidence and support.

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Welcome

🌊✨ Welcome to Tide & Tale ✨🌊

Branding meets story. Heart meets strategy.

Hello, kindred spirit. You’ve just washed ashore at Tide & Tale — a storytelling studio for the soulful creative, the indie dreamer, the poetic entrepreneur. Whether you’re building a brand, birthing a book, or seeking words that hold your heart, you're in the right harbor.

Here, we believe:

Branding is not just business — it's your voice, your vision, your vibe.

Stories are spells: cast them with care, craft, and emotional resonance.

You deserve storytelling support that feels as intentional as your art.

What We Offer:

🖋 Poetic Copywriting – Websites, bios, blurbs & more, all dripping with your unique essence. 🌱 Brand Clarity Sessions – For when you're tangled in ideas but yearning for clear skies. 📚 Author Branding for Indie Writers – Because your book deserves a beautiful banner. 💌 Custom Writing Commissions – Yes, even those stories. (NSFW/kink-friendly with loving boundaries.)

For the Creatives Who:

Speak in metaphors and dream in color

Want their online presence to feel like a poem

Are tired of cookie-cutter branding advice

Value emotional connection over empty trends

💫 Stay Awhile:

🔖 Follow for tips, inspo, behind-the-scenes magic, and offerings. 🧵 Tag us in your creative journey — we’re always cheering you on. 📬 Have a project in mind? Message or Commission Here

Tide & Tale isn’t just a service. It’s a soft rebellion. A lighthouse. A love letter to your voice.

Welcome home. 🕊️

Important Links:

@angelsdevils -> my fun side account!

Ritoria Account -> Where I publish my web novels

Tapas -> My other website where I publish my web novels

Patreon -> I have subscription offers for my web novels and commissions on here!

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Mastery Journal: Entrepreneurial Finance Reflection

Before starting the  Entrepreneurship Finance course, my main goal was to understand how financial statements for a startup business work. Since I was never good with finances, and as a creative entrepreneur who is running a storytelling-focused service, I knew I had the passion and vision, but I lacked the financial understanding that is necessary for any business including for creatives like me. I wanted to learn how to project earnings and evaluate the cost structure. I didn’t even know what a break-even point was before starting. 

Throughout the entire course, it exceeded my expectations and enhanced my understanding of more than what I needed to know. I gained hands-on experience with critical financial tools like profit and loss statements, start-up cost forecasting, and capital structure planning. For instance, the Pro-Forma assignment, allowed me to project sales and fixed costs would be in my industry. I also learned about break-even, and how to distinguish variable and fixed costs. The knowledge provided in this course helped me look into the first 12 months with confidence and map out the income and expenses for my Tide & Tale Storytelling business.

What stood out to me the most was the sustainable growth and practical strategies for cost management. Using reputable sources like Indeed for freelance editor salary estimates and Reedsy for ghostwriting price points, I was able to project reasonable numbers and avoid guessing which could lead me to be way off and mess up my estimates badly. 

I plan to apply what I learned immediately since my business has technically already started with doing commissions now and then, I can better plan the startup capital planning. I can take the numbers I am currently seeing for my commissions and subscriptions and apply those as well to better estimate my numbers. Since I am planning to be a self-funded business owner, it's essential that I not only stay on track when calculating profits but also understand where my money is being spent and how I can scale responsibly. I can also take some of this information and apply it to my normal life financing. If I can plan and fund a business, I have no doubt my funding and savings would benefit from some of the skills I learned in this class. I feel more knowledgeable about handling investor questions and I can now adapt the pricing of my services, and run my business more strategically and not just creatively. 

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Mastery Journal Entry: Legal Issues in Entrepreneurship

When I began taking Legal Issues in Entrepreneurship I had a generic and basic goal. That goal was to gain an understanding on the laws and legal issues for creating a business. As a creative who would be dealing with clients, I didn't take into the account of all the permits I would need as a freelancer, or even certain contracts thinking that Fiverr and Upwork would handle it all.

This class exceeded my expectations because I am leaving this class with way more knowledge than I did going into it. I now know the three contracts I would need which would be NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement), Client Services agreement and Content Licensing Agreement. I never thought about these before this class.

I also never really thought about the business structure I would be listed as, but with this class I decided that being a Sole Proprietorship would be best for me as an independent freelancer since I have low-risk liability. But if I were to expand, I would upgrade to LLC. The material on ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution), specifically mediation and arbitration stood out to me the most in this class because it made me realize I want to be the type of freelancer that settle things privately and keep my relationships with my clients. In order to do this, my go to method would be mediation since it more cost effective, and saves time and lowers stress.

I plan to apply this knowledge both in my personal life and as a professional freelancer. Personally, I want to make sure all freelance contracts that I sign are clear, legally sound, and straight to the point. As a professional creating these contracts, I will remain transparent with my clients and include mediation as a first option in agreements to save my relationships with my clients. This class gave me the knowledge on what is needed as a freelancer writer on a legal aspect and not just the creative aspect. Taking this course puts me ahead of my competitors who haven't taken this route, which will protect me, my business and clients in the long run.

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Mastery Journal Entry: Business Model Development

When I first started this class, I had one main goal and that was to begin to tie the pieces together for my freelance writing business. I wanted to create a scalable model that would support long-term growth. I needed to learn how to strategize and maximize profits and keep my initial vision alive which was to maintain the creative integrity. I came from a background of story telling, having my Bachelors in Creative Writing, so I knew I already had the passion and the skills to succeed but I needed a fine tune my business strategy so I can transform that passion into a career.

This course had exceeded my expectations, and it provided the tools that I needed to look at my business model with a Birds Eye view. One of the takeaways from this class was understanding the concept of MVP or Minimum Viable Product. I didn't need to have everything perfected before I actually launch, but instead I should be focused on testing, refining and pivoting to adjust to the customer's needs while keeping the initial idea.

Customer segmentation was also important to learn because it helped me define my ideal client base. While I wanted to focus on indie authors and small business owners in th east, this coursed helped me better define their pain points and helped me pivot slightly to include things they would care about more.

Before I always thought doing one time pricing for all clients was the way to go. While that may be the case with some clients, if I have clients who want ongoing projects, realized maybe having a subscription base model may fit them better. So learning about subscription models helped me better price my project. I also learned about the freemium model, giving them a taste of my work before they fully commit. I think would work in my case, because a lot of people don't want to spend so much money and not know what they would get in the end. So offering a small snippet of what I provide would help ease their minds. Learning these two models would set me apart from other freelance writers because very few offers free services, they normally have just their portfolio which can be fine with some clients but I want to create long-term relationships and don't give them a reason to doubt me with their voice.

Looking into the future, I will apply the concepts personally and professionally. I have a working business model that lets me confidently take steps forward into my storytelling brand. This cause helped me adjust my idea and fine tune it more eliminating the minor things I may have overlooked.

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Journal Entry: Reflection on my Business Feasibility Class

Being in Month 5 of my Master's Degree for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, a lot has happened and opened my eyes to things I have never known before. When I first began my Business Feasibility course, my original foal was to remind my understanding of business feasibility and how could I apply it by promoting my projects that are already published on my social media platforms effectively.

After taking this course it made me realize that it's not just about the idea itself-but making sure that the idea can actually succeed in a real market. This course has helped me close the gap between my creativity and business strategy without losing my original vision. One of the things I take to heart that I learned from this class was pivoting. Just because my idea is so versatile and if freelancing doesn't work out, I can take multiple different pivots and keep the original vision the same.

This course provided more insight then just when and how to pivot if the time needs be. It also provided me information on how to tell which audiences want web fiction and what they look for, what the competitive analysis would be which will help me refine my niche when positioning their works, and revenue models. I have a good idea how much it would cost and how much I would make if I was to stay on track for my freelancing. I may need to pivot my business a little more to stand out.

Applying what I learned in this course which as how important it is to stand out, making sure I gain audience validation and planning my wiring career so it can be long-term and thinking ahead will help me personally and professionally.

I would do this in several different ways:

I need to build a very distinct voice and presence across all platforms like Tumblr, Ritoria, Patreon, and Instagram.

I need to make sure my content is reaching the right audiences, so this will require me to do more research on how to promote my stories and find my target audience.

Since freelancing income will be a staggering from the previous research I have done, I will need to leverage multiple revenue streams. Instead of focusing on just commissions and freelancing, I need to explore monetization opportunities through Patreon, early-access models and maybe even work with other freelancers and collaborate with them.

Lastly, I need to test and adapt. I don't want to go into this blindly, so I need to implement testing and gain audience feedback, which I will reach out to my followers who already support me, and gain their feedback on what I could do.

Overall, this course helped remind me that writing is both an art and a business. If I can apply what I learned during my business feasibility class, I can make sure my creative projects are not only fulfilling but it continues to be long-term.

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Song Inspiration

Ever get that spark of inspiration from hearing a song - you know the king the one that grips your heart and refuses to let go? You are just listening, and then a lyric hits you just right, or the melody stirs something you don't know how to explain, and suddenly you realized you created an entire world, characters and moments that never existed before?

That's the magic of storytelling through music. For me, it happened while working on Project.Lure. There was this one song. a dark atmospheric that was filled with longing and just was Varian and Camellia (my OCs) The song was Lily by Alan Walker.

Drop your favorite music-inspired story moments in the comments! Let’s build a playlist of creativity together. 🎧

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Mastery Journal Entry: Product Design and Development Class

At the beginning of this class, I had one goal in mind and that was to deepen my knowledge of how designing products and services worked and how I can fit that into my freelance work of my creative company. We started our Smart Canvas last month, and I wanted to fix any gaps I may have especially for the Problem, Solution and Customer Segments I may have had.

This course met my expectations because it had provided me the tools I needed to structure the services. An example of this would be the empathy mapping. I never heard of the empathy mapping before but learning how to use it, and incorporate it into my business gave me a broader understanding just how important empathy is. I learned that it's not about just having a great product but also being able to connect with customers and connect with them on a more emotional level. I also learned ow to think more critically so that I can properly align my services to better fit the client's needs.

One of my biggest take aways from this class was from an interview we watched with Sandra Karissa BK, one of the things she said hit me deep because I was able to resonate with it. What she said was “When you see an opportunity don’t second guess yourself, just try.”  As I stated in my discussion post this resonated with me because my very first time doing commissions and getting really serious about it was during covid. I was laid off of work and struggling, and I knew I loved writing so I opened my commissions up. Once I saw this opportunity and saw what it could do for me, I wasted no time in quickly applying to the Creative Writing program at Full Sail University. This enhanced my knowledge and throughout the course I tried to better my writing while keeping my commissions up.

I made a few changes to my SmartCanvas this month. My changes focused on the problem, solution and customer Segment. I focused on those three sections because those were what we mostly focused on this month. I learned it was better to produce a more simplified service and father feedback versus trying to product a major trying to perfect the services because you don't want to waist time or resources trying to perfect something that could ultimately fail. They also said that what you think you will do will completely change when you are actually launched. So, you have to be willing to adjust, refine and sometimes re-invest in order to make your business successful.

The changes were made by the course content, especially with he emphasis on customer needs through emphathy. My changes weren't major and still stayed similar to what I initially wrote, but I added the importance of empathy into the Smart Canvas.

On a personal level, I will inform the materials I learned like the MVP principles and remain user-centric when developing my services and business. I want to focus on launchingg smaller projects first instead of taking on bigger projects. Doing this will give me more experience, and I can build better relations with my customers. In doing so they will spread the word to their teams, and connections that will eventually land me larger projects. I just have to be patient and remain true to my brand's name. I want to use empathy mapping especially to help develop services so that I can reach client's on an emotional level.

This course has exceeded my expectations of helping me refine my business venture and services, and I look forward to applying this knowledge to tool box for whatever way my business decides to shift, be it my freelancing company or if I decide to dream bigger and open a coffee shop.

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Mastery Journal Entry: Reflecting on Business Venture Research Class

Going into m Business Venture Research class, my main goal was to get the understanding of how to properly do research and learn the different research methods while learning and evaluating how to launch a successful business. I was using this class as a way to develop the skills I needed to be in marketing, and how to learn about the trends within my writing industry. I also wanted to learn about the structure of my own business idea with using real data from people who already did the research, and I just had to find it to see how well I would pair off in my field.

Needless to say, this course met my expectation because it equipped me with the tools on how to conduct research with valid resources on different aspects of my writing business. I looked at many different case studies, I read different articles, and the assignments I did helped me assess the market demand and how I should refine my business model to make it better, and how to make it stand out above the others.

The key takeaway from this course would be how important it is to actually do research and make sure its thorough before putting your business out there. You want to make sure you stay on top trends and that there is a demand in the market for your business. Some of the readings I found extremely useful would be:

The Five Cs of Opportunity Identification: The five Cs would be Customer needs, competition, context, and capabilities. These principles had given me a structured format to visualize when creating my business idea.

Business Research Methods by Naval Bajpai: Specifically I want to talk about chapter 1. The chapter went over the differences between basic and applied research. The purpose of these two types of research is to help you decide to develop or contribute your knowledge. It went over the importance of the techniques and procedures for doing the research.

Startup Opportunities by Brad Feld and Sean Wise: This is another noteworthy resource I found helpful. In Chapter 3 it talks about the criteria for an opportunity. An idea but be durable, timely, attractive and it has to add value to the buyer. If it doesn't meet these four criteria's then there is no opportunity, and it won't be successful.

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries: This reading had given me an understanding about the methodology of the Lean Startup. It had focused on creating products and get feedback from customers so that we could better our business and products. This approach would be essential or me simply because with my content creation I want to create content people want, and in order to do that I would need to gather my reader's and clients feedback. It's essential to my success.

In my business, I would utilize the skills I learned in this class and apply al of the research methods and evaluations so that I can make my freelance business better and more appealing to my clients. More importantly, I would utilize the Five Cs of Opportunity Identification so I can better understand the market, trends, clients, and my readers. This would help strengthen my confidence in my ability to do proper research but also help me gain the knowledge for my writing. This class has helped me make better decisions and gave me the kills I needed to help me during my decision-making process and how to properly find opportunities for my business.

Mastery Journal

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Journal Entry: Reflection on My Creativity and Innovation Course Journey

Starting out in week one of the Creativity and Innovation course, my primary goal was to develop a better understanding and a more structured approach to problem solving that would work for both my professional and personal projects. I wanted to add more tools to my toolbox that I could utilize that would help me develop more creativbe solutions to any problems that may pop up non my journey to entrepreneurship. I believed that this course would offer me new perspectives on how to be more creative with innovations in different fields, especially since I have two business projects I want to work on.

The two writing ventures I want to work on would be opening a 24/7 coffee shop and bookstore combined, as well as expanding my freelance writing business. This course has exceeded my expectation by providing a hands-on approach to creativity, showing me how to build and push past my initial ideas and explore ideas that aren't so linear. I have read a lot of different articles, and watched a lot of different videos this month, and I learned the different techniques of design thinking, prototyping, and creative problem-solving that allowed for a more human-centered approach to innovation. I learned that empathy is very important, and if we can cater to our users we will more likely succeed because it will build on being user friendly.

A valuable take away was understanding how I could balance creativity with a driven mindset. This course heavily emphasized that creativity isn't just an expression within the art world but its crucial for trying to find meaninful solutions, especial when working on social entrepreneurship principles. I learned that innovation often comes from the intersection of various fields and by taking the insights from different fields, we can create ideas that are not only original but it can resonate with us, and the users on a practical level.

Moving forward with my academics and personal life, I want to apply what I learned this month. In my writing, I want to be more structured brainstorming and experimenting with different writing techniques. I would also, like to get my reader base opinions and take their feedback and apply it to my writing so it can better cater to something that they also want to read. This would create a more human-centered approach for my writing. I also want to push the creative bounderies when it comes to creating character arcs, and take a non traditional approach to my plotlines.

This class has equipped me with a more open mindset and I am better equipped to approach new challenges more innovatively and creatively.

Mastery Journal

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Plotting for Shadow’s Kiss 💋

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Setting My Career Goals as a Professional Web-Novelist

Overarching Career Goal: I want to become a successful, full-time, published web-novelist and establish myself as a professional writer while also earning a steady income through serialized web-fiction and engaging with a active reader base.

Short Term Goal: Publish a serialized webnovel on a popular platform by graduation which as it stands, I graduate September 2025 for my Masters in Innovation and Entrepreunership at Full sail University.

Mastery Journey Goals:

Step 1: Establish a writing schedule.

I plan to write 2,000 words a day, or write three chapters a week. I give myself this goal so if I can't reach one I can easily reach the other while not feeling bad about not reaching my goal. It gives me more flexibility.

Tools: Dabble Writer helps monitor how many words I write in their software a day as well as setting writing goals.

Step 2: Research Web Novel Platforms

This one won't be too hard for me since I am already knowledgeable in the web novel platforms. But I will go deeper into this to see the most popular platforms for web novelists. As of right now I use Ritoria and Tapas.

Step 3: Build an Author Platform

I have already started building my Author Platforms on Tapas and Ritoria.

Tapas

Ritoria

Step 4: Publish on Web novel platforms of my choosing

After detailing, character building, an worldbuilding, I want to begin to serialize my chapters on the popular Web Novel platforms. I will make sure to have a least 5-10 chapters already done before publishing so I don't fall behind if something i life happens.

Step 5: Promote my web novels

I will use this platform on tumblr to help promote my web novels. I will post snippets of the stories, quotes, character inspiration to guide others to the stories.

Tools: Canva for visuals, photoshop

Step 6: Gather Feedback

I will gather feedback from my reader base, and beta readers to help me down my journey to Mastery. I will also seek out feedback on how to monetize my serialized chapters so I can become full-time web novelist.

Reflection:

There are may ways I can get involved in my industry. One of these would be joining writing communities. As a Web Novelist, there are tons of communities that are held online. Ritoria even has a community for writers on Discord. I could also join the Webnovel Writers' Lounge, where a bunch of web novelist gather around, the could help provide advice and how to get on the right track. They also host events that will provide networking opportunities, with editors, readers and agents. Utilizing Full Sail's resources like the Creative Writing Club and their Alumni Network, since I am already a graduate with my BFA in Creative Writing wll also get me in touch with different people so I can get the proper feed back and connect with professionals who also graduated fro Full Sail University.

Food for Thought:

Upon furthering my research I found that Serialized stories are becoming more popular for the neweer generation for multiple reasons. Serialized chapters are good for people wit shorter attention spans, and its more convient to carry around. Everyone carries their phone so being able to access online books would be easier then carrying a physical copy or sometimes a tablet. But the most impotant take away is it helps with people who have short attention spans. These chapters being publish a couple times a week won't overwhelm the reader like a large physical copy book would. They call these serialzied stories Episodic fiction. In Serialized Content is Back, and Brands Can Capitalize. Cramer says "Episodic fiction is great for (supposedly) short attention spans—We keep being told that attention spans are shrinking." (Cramer. T, pg. 1).

Library Resources:

Cramer, T. (2016). Serialized content is back, and brands can capitalize. EContent, 39(5), 3.

Mastery Journal