Barnes & Noble is now offering a free Nook Simple Touch e-reader with the purchase of its Nook HD+ color tablet, a sign that sales of one or both devices aren't so hot right now.
The Nook HD+ is B&N's larger-format (9-inch) Android tablet, which costs $259 for 16GB of storage and $299 for 32GB of storage. The Nook Simple Touch is the company's entry-level, black-and-white eInk e-reader, which retails for $79 following a $20 price cut in December.
The pairing is unusual: Why would anyone with a tablet, which owners can use to buy, download and read e-books, need a second device to do just that?
Perhaps the Nook HD+ is too large to be portable, and so purchasers may want a small book-reading device to go with them. Or maybe the idea is that you buy the tablet for yourself and give the e-reader to your significant other. Jamie Iannone, president of digital productions at Nook Media, said in a statement that the 9-inch tablet is "perfect" for movies, apps and magazines, while the Nook Simple Touch is "ideal" for reading books. The latter device is also lightweight and portable, she points out.
We imagine few consumers will find the two-device option convenient: Instead, they might want to purchase the 7-inch Nook HD, or perhaps an iPad Mini or Kindle Fire HD, which are also small, lightweight and portable, and support apps and a wide variety of media, including books and videos.
What's likely motivating the buy-one-get-one-free package is weak sales. In its last fiscal quarter, B&N reported that Nook sales, which include sales of digital content and accessories as well as devices, fell 26% from the same period a year ago.
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