What Your Nook Says About You

Barnes and Noble has recently given us a clear insight into the Nook’s target audience. The gigantic bookseller just began a new promotion which offers new Nook users free books. The catch is the users must be converts from a different e-reader; in fact they must bring their old device to the store with them. Once they purchase the Nook they will get amazing selections from Barnes and Noble’s E-book store – up to thirty total, for free!

The collection free with purchase is reportedly worth $315, well over the price of the Nook simple-touch reader at $139. Unfortunately there is another catch. Buyers do not get to pick their free books; Barnes and Noble’s marketing team has pre-selected them and loaded them on to SD cards for those participating in the promotion. Definitely a disappointment isn’t it?

Weirdly enough, it would seem that although the booksellers have been marketing their product to all ages via their “Read Forever” campaign to celebrate reading – yeah right, more like celebrate buying e-readers – their target for this promotion is a middle-aged woman, if not older. How could this be? Well the list chosen by the B&N marketing team reveals quite a lot.

Of the thirty books around 6 of them would be considered of the classical literary canon – Little Women, Robinson Crusoe, Don Quixote and such. These are the most general-interest of the list; well-known favorites for all ages. Other selections like The Bedside Baccalaureate follow in this general- interest theme. Looking more closely, however, the list reveals more specifics. For instance the list is very gender-biased. Titles like Jessica Lost, The Mom’s Guide to Running a Business, My Boyfriend Wrote a Book About Me, Checkout Girl, and Love Virtually – is it just me or do these sound a bit girly?

Upon even further examination the list shows that this established general-interest, female audience is in fact also over-the-hill. Titles like AARP Crash Course in Finding the Work You Love, (about Boomers reinventing their lives), The 21^st Century Crossword Puzzle Dictionary and The Good Housekeeping Cookbook (both for people with time on their hands – retired maybe?) suggest reading for the older set.

This may be a bit overanalyzed but it seems as though Barnes and Noble’s Nook users share a few similar characteristics. Granted, the selection also does include titles like Soccer: The Player’s Handbook; B&N may just be trying to reach a varied audience. However, it seems unlikely. (Sorry young techies! You’re still hip, I promise!)