Pope's books selling like hotcakes says publisher

SAN FRANCISCO - Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI last month, has another new title: best selling author, his US publisher said.

"It's just amazing the interest in the Pope's writings," said Mark Brumley, president of Ignatius Press, which has the US rights to Benedict's writings.

"We're reprinted over 300,000 copies of his books and we've sold out in the first couple of days all the copies we had on hand," he said. "Almost all of those 300,000 copies we're reprinted are spoken for." The non-profit San Francisco-based publisher started printing Ratzinger's works a quarter century ago in an effort to spread the works of leading European theologians.

When Ratzinger's fellow cardinals named him successor to Pope John Paul II, Ignatius Press experienced an unprecedented surge in demand for books by the incoming pontiff.

"We have a somewhat unique figure in this pope who was so prolific before becoming pope," Brumley told Reuters.

"Most of the time you don't have a man elected to the papacy who has written, you know, three dozen books as Joseph Ratzinger has."

Among his most popular works are "Salt of the Earth," a transcript of a lengthy interview he gave nearly a decade ago, and the first volume of his memoirs.

- REUTERS