Justine Manzano On September 17, 2022, over two years after the publication of my first book, due to the pandemic, I attended my first in-person author event as an author. Books, Books, Books 2022 in Lancaster, PA was a great place to start. The event organizers were on top of everything, and despite a few hiccups us authors only knew about after the fact, the show went off without a hitch. 55 authors worked together to make this book show a success. Sorry I’m so late in covering this…Life, ya know?
Meanwhile, on a more personal level, I hadn’t traveled for anything in YEARS. Between a pandemic and a generally busy work/life situation, the last time I’d traveled was for my friend Allegra’s bachelorette party…and that was in 2017! So I decided to travel from NYC with my oldest and closest friend, Joy, who I’ve known since 1997 and who is very different from me, and yet somehow, we’re cut from the same cloth.
Joy is spiritual, graceful, and chill. I am clumsy, have serious anxiety and a Type A personality.
We had an amazing time. And I want to tell you all about it.
Day 1: When you have a best friend who travels the world and you travel your living room, you seem like a major tourist when you start taking pictures of road signs of a state that’s only two states away.
On the way, we stopped at a Starbucks for a pick-me-up, and I learned that Joy’s many stays in the south had dramatically altered her ability to wait in a line. Meaning I was toe-tapping my way through the floor as I waited for my coffee while Joy leaned casually against the wall, patient as anything, and laughed at me. I chase her and try to kick her.
I either need to move to a slower moving state for my own health, or stay completely away from them before I go mad.
We rented a lovely cabin on AirBnB, so we headed there. I emerged from the car and immediately checked my phone forthe door’s key code while walking. And I fell. “TEN STEPS JUSTINE,” Joy teased. For the rest of the trip, everywhere I went where the ground wasn’t perfectly even… “Watch your step, J.”
We were meant to meet up with my editor Jennia for dinner, but we crossed wires somehow and that didn’t work out. Joy and I ended up going anyway. The place was J.B. Dawson’s. It was awesome. There were pineapple cocktails. There was a drink on the menu called the Covid Crusher.
We got back to the cabin. “Watch your step, J.” “Shut up, bitch, I’m gonna kill you.”
We needed some time to get comfortable in the cabin so we could actually manage to sleep. We stayed up watching Project Runway as background noise and ended up obsessed with it. Because the episode was about finding inspiration from birds, and the judges complained when they used feathers, “It’s too birdy,” became our new phrase for everything that was too anything for the rest of the trip.
The bed in the cabin was hard af. Joy referred to it as la tabla for the rest of the trip. It did NOT lend to the most comfortable sleep.
Day 2: 
I was completely unable to be cool. I woke up as a bundle of nerves,
“What’s making you nervous,” Joy asked. But I didn’t know, so she asked me what I wanted to achieve at the event.
“I need to sell at least ten books,” I said.
“I thought you don’t care about sales.”
“I don’t.”
“It sounds like you do.”
We went back and forth about this for a while until I admit that I want to reach people because normally I blame my sales on getting lost in all the books online.
“How about we make the rate of success based on how many people we make aware of the books?”
“Okay, fine. I pay a therapist, you know?”
“Fuck you, I’m better.”
It didn’t take long for the Type A in me to rear its ugly head.
“Joy, we’re going to be late if we stop for breakfast.”
“If that happens, it’s what is meant to be.”
“Your free spirit shit does not make schedules stop.”
“If you don’t eat, you’re going to die over there. Trust me.”
We weren’t late. We went to the adorable Rachel’s Cafe & Creperie. While hanging out around town, I fell in love with Lancaster, PA and now want to live there.
Books Books Books 2022 was held at the Groff Center. We got there a little after the 9:30 cut off, but people were still coming in. Our table was in a perfect spot. It was in a small nook and not on the two main sales floors, but you had to walk past us to get from one to the other. We were also right across from the ladies room. I set up what I could while Joy unloaded the boxes from the car. She got back…and rearranged it. She was right. Sometimes I hate her.
We paced around the sales floor. Every table looked wonderful. I scored this brilliant piece from
author Jenny Allen.
Once the doors opened, I stumbled horrifically through my first two pitches. Joy pointed out ways to better pitch my books. I got better throughout the day and Joy told me I need to write myself a script. I was trying to wing it. Our banter also helped garner us attention.
Jennia came by for a visit. She was as fantastic as she is online! Jennia hung out by the table for a while and helped talk up the books. There were many hugs.
At one point, I discovered a book in my TO SELL box, with The Order of the Key cover and a completely different book printed inside!
In the end, we have a lot of readers laughing. We sold around twelve books and signed up fifteen people for the mailing list. And yes, that doesn’t seem like many, but such is the indie author life. Before we knew it, it was over. Cleaning up, we realized I brought way too much of everything, but I was glad because I gave out loads of swag with sales. I did not get hungry until after the show. Joy was right. I hate when she does that.
We went out for dinner at Loxley’s with a portion of the writers from the event. Joy is a vegetarian. I
probably should have done better research when the place was selected. They did not have a vegetarian option. Joy decided she would take the hit and ordered fish. They forget her and only give her her side salad. They tried to correct it and were very nice people so I’m not speaking badly about the restaurant. My food was great and the conversation was wonderful. Joy chalked it up to, “I wasn’t supposed to order
fish. That’s why.” But she had a headache by the time dinner was over.
I dragged her to a Vietnamese restaurant in the area, and I wish I’d gotten the name of it, because the food was awesome. This was my first time trying Vietnamese, though I only ate a tiny bit, while Joy got a full dinner. We headed home after that.
“Watch your step, J.”
“Shut up.”
When we went to go to sleep for the night, the door to the bedroom decided to pop open on its own. I slammed it. “Fuck no, we’re not doing that tonight.” And locked it.
Joy cracked up because apparently, it was a super fast response, and I clearly wasn’t having any ghost crap that night.
Sleep came fast, but I was still uncomfortable. More importantly, I was happy. The anxiety of the last two days was gone, and I surpassed my expectations even after I dropped them.
Day 3:
We woke up and just hung out around the apartment for a while as we slowly began to pack up our things. Nurse Joy took that time to lance a cyst I have on my arm–get you an author’s assistant who can lance a cyst on your arm and remove all the puss and only sort of makes you want to pass out!
For breakfast we headed to Rachel’s again. It was awesome. But we had to wait for 40 minutes, because apparently Sunday traffic is very different from Saturday traffic over here. Obviously, this was because we were meant to explore the town, or at least that’s what Joy says. We found a yoga spot, an antique shop, a vegan food spot named Root and talked to several dog owners and played with those dogs, while talking through general life stuff.
Like I do every time I have some hair-brained, half-baked plot, I bugged my husband, Ismael. I sent him a Zillow site with a house for 150,000 in Lancaster. “Want to move to Lancaster?” Ismael, who answered every single text I sent while I was away, ignored me.
Joy and I hit the road and headed home. When we got to my place, Joy ran right past me, Ismael, and Logan and into the bathroom, while I got welcomed back with hugs.Together, we unloaded all the swag and books from her car and said goodbye. It was a blast to get to spend the weekend with her. Still, I missed my guys, and it’s good to be home.
Joy called me fifteen minutes later. She had wanted to go get her nails done after she dropped me off. Well, the nail place was closed, so she decided to work a shift at one of her jobs. She’s insane. I love her. She can do everything. It’s scary. But she spent the whole time scolding me for not believing I can do everything I can do too. So I should probably listen to her. After all, she was right all weekend.