INSIDE FRENCH RUGBY - MORE ACCLAIM

New Zealand sports writer John Daniell’s much praised book Inside French Rugby – on his career as a rugby professional – has won yet more fame. Last week it scored Rugby Book of the Year at the 2010 British Sports Book Awards, beating off a strong shortlist that included a book co-written by top British rugby writer Stephen Jones.

To reprise the story so far: Inside French Rugby was published in New Zealand boutique non-fiction publisher Awa Press after being turned down by 30 UK publishers.
Awa's Mary Varnham (a veritable human publishing dynamo) subsequently sold UK, Commonwealth and South Africa English-language rights to Ebury Press, a division of Random House UK.
Last year the book was shortlisted for the world’s richest sports book prize, the William Hill and, rumour has it, only narrowly missed out to Duncan Hamilton’s biography of cricketer Harold Larwood.
The Ebury edition, under the title Confessions of a Rugby Mercenary, is now being marketed in New Zealand by Random House. As they say, what goes around comes around.