Australian Julian Assange will receive $1.5 million to write his own autobiography, according to entertainment portal RadarOnline. While this is still far behind U.S. President George W. Bush's paycheck of $7 million for Decision Points, Assange's fee is still hefty for someone who just rose to international stature recently.

But it's true that Assange's rise to world fame, which saw him as a tough contender for TIME's Person of the Year against Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, came at a cost. While he himself is not inclined to write the book, he admitted to the the London Sunday Times that he have to write it, after he "already spent 200,000 pounds [$380,000] for legal costs... to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat."

Julian Assange has been accused of sexual assault by two women in the country of Sweden, which started an international man hunt against the Australian, which coincided with the release of the so-called Climategate. He was later arrested in London, but managed to post bail. He was since placed on a house arrest and is currently residing at friend's mansion in east England.

According to RadarOnline, Assange's book will be published in the United States will be published by Alfred A. Knopf which put up $800, 000 for the purpose. (Read more here.)

While there is still no release date for Assange's book, it already faces tough competition on the topic of WikiLeaks from the book Inside WikiLeaks written by its former spokesperson Daniel Domscheit-Berg. The latter is set to be released February next year from Random House.

According to Random House, Domscheit-Berg's book, subtitled My Time with Julian Assange At The World's Most Dangerous Web Site, will reveal "never-disclosed details about the inner workings of the increasingly controversial organization that has struck fear into governments and business organizations worldwide and prompted the Pentagon to convene a 120-man task force."

Inside WikiLeaks is bound to provide an interesting and contrasting vantage point to Julian Assange's book as it examines WikiLeaks from the perspective of Domscheit-Berg, the web site's former No.2, who was disenchanted by its lack of transparency. Domscheit-Berg has since moved on to work with OpenLeaks set to be launched next year.