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WikiLeaks Founder to Tell His Story–for $1.3 Million

Dec 27, 2010  •  Post A Comment

Julian Assange, the embattled founder of WikiLeaks, has signed a $1.3 million deal involving publishers in the U.S. and the U.K. to write his autobiography, Digital Trends reports.

The deal is for $800,000 from Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S. and another $502,000 from Conongate Books in the U.K., the story says.

It’s all about the money, Assange says. “I don’t want to write this book, but I have to,” Assange is quoted as telling the Sunday Times in the U.K. “I have already spent £200,000 for legal costs and I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat.”

Assange is out on bail after his recent arrest on Swedish sex charges. WikiLeaks, meanwhile, is struggling to continue its news-leaking efforts despite the loss of support from major companies such as Amazon, PayPal, Apple, Visa and MasterCard.

WikiLeaks has also had internal turmoil, the story reports, with a group of dissident employees leaving the company to start a similar service called OpenLeaks. One of their biggest complaints, according to the report, was Assange’s inability to keep himself out of the news.

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