You'd think a book about Julian Assange, notorious Wikileaks founder and accused sexual offender, would make more of a stir, but his memoirs sold just 644 copies in three days of sales in Britain. Julian Assange: The Unauthorised Autobiography was ranked number 50 in hardcover non-fiction by Nielsen Bookscan. The number 1 book, by contrast, Only Time Will Tell by best-selling author Jeffrey Archer, sold 25,118 copies in its first week on sale in the UK.

Assange disavowed the work about himself, calling it nothing but a draft published without his approval.

"They are about old-fashioned opportunism and duplicity, screwing people over to make a buck," he said. He accused publishers Canongate Books of breach of contract, claiming that they had agreed not to release the book without his permission.

But the publishers claim he initially agreed to it and had signed a contract with them. He accepted an advance for the book too, which, they say, he has not paid back.

Explaining the book's poor sales, they pointed out that there had been no advance publicity, either for the book trade, the media or the reading public. In spite of this, the book has secured ten international deals, says Canongate, and the reviews have been mostly positive.