Inside WikiLeaks to be Published in 18 Editions

It takes years for the average book to go from idea to manuscript to bookstore and finally into a reader's eager hands. But for the upcoming Inside WikiLeaks, which will be released in Germany on Feb. 11 and worldwide shortly thereafter, the process was anything but drawn out.

The book is by Daniel Domscheit-Berg, the German who under the pseudonym Daniel Schmitt served as spokesman and was effectively No. 2 under Julian Assange until he left the organization in September 2010. "He writes about WikiLeaks from an insider's perspective, giving not only an eye-opening account of this world-changing organization but also an up-close portrait of Julian Assange," says Pia Götz, foreign rights manager at Ullstein Buchverlage GmbH who has been responsible for selling the rights abroad.

"We only acquired the rights for this book ourselves shortly before Christmas," says Götz. "The book was not even written then! However, we were very much aware of its potential, not only for publication in Germany but internationally. This meant we had to act fast, even though we did not have a single page of the manuscript."

Based on a confidential information sheet and proposal, Götz was able to sell as many as 14 translation rights already before Christmas. "For a German publisher, it is very unusual to work on proposal basis," says Götz. "However, with such a topical book, time is of the essence and all the foreign publishers understood this and reacted accordingly."

Since Christmas, Götz has managed to sell rights in four more places, and the countries and regions who will be publishing the book along with the German edition include Australia/New Zealand, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Russia, South Korea, Spain (both in Castilian and in Catalan), Sweden, the U.K. and the U.S.

Along with Ullstein, other Bonnier book publishers include Tammi in Finland and Forum in Sweden.

"We have had an amazing - and exhausting - time working on this project," says Götz. "Since so many international publishing houses wanted to publish simultaneously with us, we had to work parallel under immense time pressure. The author wrote while our editor worked on the manuscript day and night, and at the same time the foreign translators and editors worked on their respective editions. Press, marketing and sales teams in many countries were involved. Everybody had to be constantly alert and communication was vital. I'd never experienced such a fast moving production in so many countries ever before. It was a really thrilling and exciting experience!"