Wikileaks founder Julian Assange reluctantly signs book deal worth $1.5 million

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Legal fees and the cost of running the Wikileaks web site have forced Julian Assange to do the predictable: write a book.

The Wikileaks founder inked a $1.5 million book deal with American Publisher Alfred A. Knopf and British publisher Canongate, Britain's Sunday Times reported.


The Australian has fallen under tough financial times after Bank of America, Visa, Mastercard and PayPal cut off payment services to the controversial site.

Assange is currently free on bail in Great Britain, where he is fighting extradition to Sweden over alleged sex crimes.

"I don't want to write this book, but I have to," he said in an interview with the newspaper. "I have already spent 200,000 pounds for legal costs and I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat."

While Assange's website has released hundreds of thousands of American military and diplomatic secrets, he's been reticent to disclose details of his own life. Since his arrest, it has been revealed he has a 20-year-old son, Daniel.

He has not said what other details about himself he will reveal in the book. 
Assange's book deal isn't the first to come from the phenomenon that Wikileaks has become.

His former spokesperson Daniel Domscheit-Berg landed a book deal last week with Random House. His book, "Inside Wikileaks: My Time with Julian Asasnge at the World’s Most Dangerous Website", is set to hit shelves in Germany in January.

Daily News

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