Barnes and Noble will now be selling their Nook line at a heavily discounted price with a one year digital subscription to the New York Times. In fact, the Nook Simple Touch will be given away at no charge with the Times package, while the Nook Color will be offered at $99, down from the original $199 tag. Amidst heavy competition, Barnes and Noble is clearly relying on the promotion to sell more of their signature e-readers.
Interestingly enough, Barnes and Noble is not the only manufacturer selling their hardware at a reduced price in hopes of selling more digital content. Amazon’s Kindle Fire has also taken this approach, selling their tablet at a loss and banking on the Amazon store as their major revenue source. So far, the Fire has been incredibly successful and shipped approximately 5.5 million units last quarter. We’ll see how many others follow in their footsteps…
