WikiLeaks Founder Gives Little Away in This ‘Unauthorized Autobiography’

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Simon Marcus Gower | August 12, 2012

... Well, Assange did give himself permission, motivated by a very substantial contract from a publisher. Various reports put the initial deal at anywhere between 900,000 pounds to a cool million ($1.4 million to $1.5 million). But then the author had second thoughts.

Upon seeing a draft of the book, the founder of the controversial WikiLeaks website concluded that he could not go ahead with publication, not least because he feared it would add to problems in a case being brought against him by US prosecutors. Assange withdrew his authority for publication, but the publishers were not pleased ...

In the preface, the publisher states that the book “explains both the man and his work, underlining his commitment to the truth” ...

Instead, a careful reading of the book provides a picture of a hacker addicted to the thrill of leaking documents that he knows are not intended for release. The Assange we see here is someone whose “pursuit of the truth” appears to have developed from an almost obsessive computer-hacking habit ...

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/lifeandtimes/wikileaks-founder-gives-little-away-in-this-unauthorized-autobiography/537510

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1. The Unauthorized Autobiography of Julian Assange

Perpetual shit-show Julian Assange has notched another screw-up in his long list of self-undermining failures: The much-vaunted memoir, for which he received a $1.5 million advance, and wherein he was to lay out for once and for all a defense against the malicious attacks leveled at him from all sides, is going to be published tomorrow against his will because he is an impossible human being ...

Canongate had already paid out roughly $790,000 to Assange by the time he tried to pull out, and since he wasn't offering to pay it back, it maintains that it still has the right to publish ...

The book reportedly contains a chapter explaining, for the first time, Assange's side of the rape allegations pending against him in Sweden. It turns out that the girls were just mad because he wasn't returning his phone calls, and at the same time were intelligence agents plotting to bring him down in a honeytrap ...

http://gawker.com/5842613/the-unauthorized-autobiography-of-julian-assange

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2. Julian Assange's ‘unauthorized’ autobiography released in London

By Karla Adam, Published: September 22, 2011

LONDON — In an unusual upset, a renowned tell-it-all publisher is objecting — unsuccessfully — to the publication of his own work. To the release, in fact, of his autobiography ...

Nick Davies, the publishing director of Canongate, said in an interview .... that in March, it was clear that Assange was unhappy with the initial draft O’Hagan wrote, but even though Assange was repeatedly invited to comment, make edits and spell out a new vision for the book, he “did not deliver a single word.”

What he did do is ask to cancel his contract. Canongate “reluctantly agreed” and asked Assange to pay back his advance, Davies said ...

“I’ve worked on other books, and you hit a bump and you find a new way of writing,” Davies said. “Or, you go separate ways and the money is repaid. But this has been just a bizarre situation.” He contended that the seemingly paradoxical “unauthorized autobiography” category could be “a publishing first” ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/julian-assanges-unauthorized-autobiography-released-in-london/2011/09/22/gIQAtq2XnK_story.html