That’s what Barnes & Noble is doing for the next month or so with the following three offers:

• Subscribe to NYT for one year at $19.99/mo = Free Nook Touch (regularly $99)
• Subscribe to NYT for one year at $19.99/mo = $100 off a Nook Color (regularly $199)
• Subscribe to People magazine for one year at $9.99/mo = $50 off a Nook Tablet (regularly $249)

Is this a good deal? It really depends on what you were planning to do in this space before you read about the offer, because the final cost for either subscription is not trivial—$240 for the Times, and $120 for People. Basically, the only way you’ll save any money here is if you were already planning on one of those subscriptions and you were saving up to buy a Nook device. In other words, it’s a really bad idea to use this offer to “finance” a new Nook purchase.

You can check out the details of each offer here at the Barnes & Noble site. You may also want to compare it to the Times’ standard subscription offers.

If you like Dick but you’re more into nonfiction, here’s a 2003 Wired article on Dick’s lasting influence on Hollywood.

(Illustration: The._.Joker)

I clicked through to the settings screen and was presented with this new (well, new to me) set of options.

I think it’s terrific. I’ve been a big proponent of eReaderIQ for a while now, because it’s an effortless way for the average consumer to find Kindle deals. (For a similar service for iOS, try AppShopper.) Unfortunately, eReaderIQ’s daily email has been losing its utility lately as more and more ebooks flood the Amazon store—the amount of chaff makes it harder than ever to find the occasional grain of wheat.

This morning, I opened my eReaderIQ email and smiled. It’s a lot cleaner and better organized, and a lot easier to see whether there’s anything worth grabbing.

(Photo: peterjroberts)

As some of you are aware, every November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. If you’re a NaNoWriMo DoRk–and I can use that term because I’ve been one myself in the past–then you know that it’s incredibly difficult to squirt out the minimum required number of words every day for 30 days straight. (I never made it past day 3.) Most likely, the last thing you need at this delicate point in your quest is to be interrupted by a bunch of writing advice. What you need is caffeine, snack items, and another big helping of willful idiocy self-abuse.

But these titles probably won’t be free much longer, so try to sneak over to Amazon and grab them before they go away. Then, come December, you can peruse them at your leisure over a snifter of brandy while you relax by your hearth; I’m pretty sure no writer worth his salt would sit by a regular fireplace.

Amazon says it will post each day’s deal on its Twitter stream (@amazonkindle), and “frequently” on its Kindle Daily Post blog, but it does’t provide an RSS feed specifically for the daily deal. (Both the Twitter account and blog are used for all sorts of announcements.) Fortunately a Booksprung reader has created a simple one using page2rss that will attempt to syndicate the actual Kindle Daily Deal page each day. You can try it out at—

For future reference, or in case the Pipes version doesn’t work properly in the future, here’s the original link:

http://page2rss.com/page?url=www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/?docId=1000677541

[Thanks to Jordi!]

I’ve checked out the fine print and I don’t see any hidden gotchas, other than that the $100 code has to be used within 90 days, and if you cancel your Audible membership after the first month, you’ll have to pay for the remainder of the 12-month membership. (You can cancel within the first month without incurring the penalty, but you’ll have to go ahead and pay $14.95 if you’ve already used your first credit, and you’ll have to give up the code of course.) You also have to be a new Audible member to take advantage of this offer, or at minimum you can’t have signed up within the past 24 months. I couldn’t find details on which countries are eligible for the offer, so you’ll have to contact Amazon or Audible to ask.

Frankly I agree with the online chatter that right now is probably a bad time to buy a new Kindle, since it’s likely that a newer model will be announced very soon. The Audible offer is good until the end of January 2012, but the fine print says the $100 code has to be used within 90 days of receiving it, so you might want to bookmark this page and come back once Amazon reveals pricing and availability on the next Kindle model.

Finally, let me make it clear that this isn’t an advertisement—no one is paying me anything and I won’t get any kickbacks. I’m writing about this deal because I think it’s a good one, if you already want to buy a Kindle and want to join Audible. (It was an easy choice for my mother, for example, since she loves audiobooks.) I’m also writing about it because I’ve noticed that even though the offer is valid until January 31, 2012, it’s all but disappeared from the Amazon site, at least for me. (I realize everyone sees a custom version of Amazon based on purchase patterns). So this is my attempt to publicize it a little more.

Update: Wow, I have a terrible memory. It looks like I wrote a very similar post (with almost the exact same headline!) eighteen months ago, when the offer was first announced. Ah well, it’s still a good deal…

Of course, it’s also a good way for Amazon to remain relevant in the device war this summer, after being upstaged pretty dramatically by both the Nook and Kobo touchscreen readers. The one thing a $139 Kindle 3G has over either of those newer, sexier models is, well, free 3G connectivity. (They both offer Wi-Fi only.)

As to what AT&T’s sponsorship entails, Amazon’s press release offers no details, although I’m guessing you’re going to be seeing a lot of targeted ads for AT&T services on your Kindle. Probably not anything about AT&T’s iPad 3G plan, though.

Today, however, they’re offering free access to their website for 24 hours. You have to register, but there’s no credit card info required, just name, address, and email. There’s also no verification process, so theoretically you can make up anything you want if you’d prefer to remain private.

You’ve probably already heard that Consumer Reports recently named the new Nook Simple Touch ereader the best of the 6″ models, beating out the Kindle 3 by one point (the scores were 78 and 77 respectively). But now you can see the full list, and see how everyone stacks up on a range of features and performance criteria.

Consumer Reports free access offer [via Consumerist]

Disclosure: I used to blog for Consumerist, which is owned by the parent organization that owns Consumer Reports. None of that past professional relationship has any bearing on this post, however.

Enough jibber jabber! I have firework accidents to get into and film for YouTube! Here’s the deal—and it’s not a bad one if you’re a heavy reader of sci-fi and fantasy books, and you like what Angry Robot has to offer:

…for £69, you get every new release for the next twelve months, which AR promises will consist of at minimum 24 titles. For books that are part of a series, subscribers will be able to purchase the earlier titles at a 30% discount (although the discount is only good for one use, apparently).

The titles are in EPUB format but since there’s no DRM, you can easily convert them to a Kindle-friendly format if necessary.

If you’re curious about it, you’re in luck. The audiobook version—which is narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, who I think we can all agree is the Hollywood talent to turn to when you need the word “fuck” said with verve and forcefulness (e.g. “Snakes on a Plane”)—is free from Amazon’s audiobook company Audible for a limited time. The Kindle version is $4.79, and the hardcover is just over $8 right now.

One nice touch, and why I’m mentioning the offer in the first place: Audible will wirelessly deliver the file directly to your Kindle via Wi-Fi if you like.