"SEAL Team Six" Hot Property after Bin Laden Death

By Andy Lewis

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Interest in a new book about Navy SEAL Team Six is sky-rocketing in the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden by members of the elite U.S. special force.

"SEAL Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy SEAL Sniper" is being rushed into U.S. stores this week ahead of its originally scheduled May 24 publication date.

A representative for publisher St. Martin's Press said it has almost quadrupled the print run to 70,000 copies to meet the demand.

On Amazon.com the book has moved from ranking No. 20,000 to the No. 5 bestselling book for the web retailer. Hollywood talent agency CAA was brought in last week to handle movie rights.

The Hollywood Reporter has learned that the co-authors Howard Wasdin, a member of SEAL Team Six in the 1990s, and Stephen Templin, a Navy veteran and professor at Meio University in Japan, are now at work on a series of "SEAL Team Six" novels.

Those aren't the only books in the works: Dalton Fury, the author of "Kill Bin Laden", which Oscar-winning "Hurt Locker" director Kathryn Bigelow is adapting for the screen, also wrote a novel about the military's special forces. "BLACK SITE: A Delta Force Novel", co-written with Mark Greaney, will be published by St. Martin's Press in February 2012.

Since bin Laden's death, Wasdin has appeared on several TV and radio shows and will be on a "Dateline" NBC special on Thursday night.

"I think that the book 'SEAL Team Six' has taken hold with the public because it is about such a secretive, elite unit within the military," said Trident Media Group agent Scott Miller, who negotiated the book deal.

"It's a group that, because of recent events, people are now hearing a little about for the first time. They want to know more about ST6, and they know this book will shed a lot more light onto this subject matter."

St. Martin's Press describes "SEAL Team Six" as a "dramatic, behind-the-scenes chronicle (that takes) readers deep inside the world of Navy SEALs and Special Forces snipers."

Wasdin served in SEAL Team Two (SEa And Land teams) during the first Gulf War before being promoted to Team Six, the most elite SEAL group. During the early 1990s Somalia conflict, he was tasked with finding warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid. He retired from the military in 1995 after being injured in combat.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant)