Even though the holiday shopping season has wound down, Barnes and Noble is trying to ramp up sales of its Nook line of e-readers with a discount promotion for consumers who take advantage of its periodicals line of subscriptions.
The book retailer issued this press release today:
“Barnes & Noble today announced two exciting deals that offer customers amazing savings on award-winning NOOK products when they purchase a subscription to some of the top periodicals. Specifically, with a one-year subscription to the NOOK edition of The New York Times, customers will receive a $99 NOOK Simple Touch at no cost or a NOOK Color at $99, a $100 savings. With a one-year NOOK subscription to the full-color interactive edition of PEOPLE, customers can enjoy at a $50 savings on NOOK Tablet for just $199. Both are exciting bundles for customers to enjoy these great periodicals on their NOOK devices, along with content from the expansive NOOK Bookstore including more than 2.5 million books, magazines, newspapers, children’s books, apps and more.”
While giving away the Nook obviously does little to further the company’s economic bottom line, it does go a long way towards raising the number of devices sold, which in turn encourages future digital reading device consumers to lean towards a device that has sold a large number of units. Also, customers are being enticed with the interactive content of digital-specific editions of the already popular magazine and newspaper, just giving readers another nudge in the direction of doing all of their mass-market periodical reading on a mobile device.
And just to make the promotion even more appealing, any new subscribers who check in at the New York Times booth at the CES show in Las Vegas this week and sign up can walk away holding their new Nook device, with no shipping and therefore, no waiting.
Mercy Pilkington is a Senior Editor for Good e-Reader. She is also the CEO and founder of a hybrid publishing and consulting company.
