British journalist Milo Yiannopoulos, the self-confessed Internet super-villain and outspoken critic of what he considers social justice warriors, has just landed a book deal reportedly worth $250,000.

Yiannopoulos rose to fame – some would say infamy – as a tech journalist, notably for his views on the Gamergate controversy and later airing what some critics have considered inflammatory opinions on the Breitbart News Network.

This year Yiannopoulos was famously banned for life from Twitter for what Twitter considered abusive behavior, an action that resulted in cheers from one corner and from the other side lamentations regarding free speech online.

At the time of his ban Yiannopoulos had said that Twitter’s censorship was a shot in the foot for free speech and a shot in the foot for Twitter. More recently he was reported as saying to The Hollywood Reporter, “They said banning me from Twitter would finish me off.  Just as I predicted, the opposite has happened.”

Indeed, Yiannopoulos has just been offered a book deal through Simon & Schuster’s Threshold Editions imprint, with a quarter-million-dollar advance. According to THR, he had spent half an hour trying to “shock” representatives from Simon & Schuster in a meeting, which resulted in their offering him a “wheelbarrow full of money.”

In his usual narcissistic vein, Yiannopoulos said that he was now bigger and more influential than ever, adding that the forces of political correctness had failed to quiet his voice. “Social justice warriors should be scared, very scared,” he said.

This is not the first time Yiannopoulos has had his mind set on writing a book, having threatened in the past to write about Gamergate and also to hold the Silicon Valley “elite” to account in a book called The Sociopaths of Silicon Valley.

Not surprisingly, Yiannopoulos is an incredibly divisive figure, embodying a schism in which one side say he’s championing free speech serving social progress with essential views, and another side that condemns him as an Internet troll with a view only to flaming and enriching himself.

Shortly after news about the book deal was heard, Simon & Schuster was condemned for giving Yiannopoulos a platform. Critics called for a boycott of the publisher for what comedian Frank Conniff said would be a book he imagined might aptly be called “Alt-Kampf.”

Outside the mainstream, Yiannopoulos does have widespread appeal. He has been met with standing ovations at American universities and has also had his events crashed at other universities by activists.

Photo credit: Leweb Photos via Flickr