Struggling B&N Giving Away Free E-Reader With Tablet Purchase

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?