Barnes and Noble announced two new Nook promotions today that will be ongoing until March 9th, 2012.
Basically, B&N are experimenting with the idea of offering discounts on Nook devices with the purchase of Nook subscriptions. This idea isn’t new—remember the Philly Newspapers selling the Archos Arnova 10 G2 for $99 with a subscription—but this is the first time Barnes and Noble has tried a promotion like this.
The first deal goes like this: buy a 1 year subscription to The New York Times and get a Nook Touch for free or a Nook Color for $99. That equates to $100 off the purchase of a Nook. The subscription for the The New York Times isn’t cheap, though. It will set you back $19.99 per month. Here are the details at B&N.com.
The second deal is for the Nook Tablet. If you purchase a 1 year subscription to People Magazine, you can pickup a Nook Tablet for $199. That’s $50 off the regular price. A subscription to People costs $9.99 per month. Here are the details for this deal at B&N.com.
If you planned on getting either of these subscription anyway then it’s a really good deal, especially the free Nook Touch. But if not, I don’t see many people going for this deal. $240 is a lot to spend up front for a subscription.
On a side note, I tested some periodicals from Barnes and Noble in the past and they surprisingly did not have any DRM. I wonder if that’s still the case?
Nathan, these kinds of deals is where I see the e-reader heading in the future. You could also have someone like http://www.ebooks.com or http://www.booksonboard.com do a book club where you have to purchase a certain number of e-books over a one year period and thus earn the e-reader for free. And these sites could offer different e-readers to cover all of the platforms. Another variation could be some sort of a deal with a public library that is raising funds. Make a certain size donation and get an e-reader for free.