Apple Slices Barnes & Noble's Soul, B&N Responds by Slashing Nook Price

Get a Nook Tablet for the low-low price of just $199.

That's $300 less than the iPad, for those of you who forgot that Apple's

leading tablet still retails for $500.

still rules the marketplace.

still forces new competitors to retire. Among the tablets on the lower end of the pricing spectrum, Amazon's

better branded and more effectively promoted device, the Kindle Fire, seems to be taking whatever market share Barnes & Noble could have hoped to obtain. Thus, the bookstore chain decided to kick off the year's biggest week for tech news by announcing that consumers can now

. The deal is exclusive to Nook.com and Barnes & Noble

bookstores and comes with a catch: to save $50, consumers have to purchase a one-year subscription to the Nook version of People Magazine. “Consistently among our bestselling Nook Newsstand titles, customers love reading People on Nook and exploring all of the magazine's exciting interactive features,” Jonathan Shar, VP and general manager of digital newsstand at Barnes & Noble, said in a company release. “We are pleased to announce this fantastic deal for a full-year of leading entertainment news on our fastest, lightest Nook Tablet for only $199. We're continuing to make it easier than ever for customers to get more out of their Nook device and are excited to offer our most popular content and leading devices at an amazing value.” While Shar's praise is clearly exaggerated, this is definitely a good deal for those who were already intending to buy a Nook Tablet with a People subscription. Steve Sachs, EVP of Consumer Marketing at Time Inc., concurs. “This promotion is a great opportunity for new subscribers to experience People whenever they want, wherever they want,” Sachs said in a company release. “Customers have told us how engaging they find People and this edition is designed specifically for Barnes & Noble's Nook." The promotion runs through March 9, 2012, but something tells me that Barnes & Noble will find the strength to extend the deal to

customers sometime this spring. While sales might be high enough to maintain the $250 price, the bookseller's silence on the matter indicates that the Nook Tablet has not been able to keep up with the Kindle Fire. But even if the Nook Tablet is doing well, why wait to give consumers a reason to make the Barnes & Noble switch? This is a company in crisis; if it

, Barnes & Noble is doomed. It needs every penny that it can scrape together. The more Nook Tablets it sells today, the more it will be likely to sell tomorrow. Going forward, the competition isn't going to get any easier. Between the

– which may or may not come in two sizes – the inevitable Kindle Fire 2, and a plethora of other competitors, Barnes & Noble cannot afford to wait and see what happens next. The bookseller needs to sell as many tablets as possible while the market is still young enough to welcome the bookstore chain with open arms. Long-term, the U.S. tablet market is likely to be several times the size that it is today. And if tablets can completely replace laptops as some predict, the market will be enormous. From what I can tell, however, Barnes & Noble doesn't value the long-term potential of the Nook Tablet brand. Rather, the company hopes that by offering special deals like the one announced today, consumers will suddenly decide to purchase the tablet. If that's the case, it would imply that consumers wanted the device all along but were waiting for a nudge to push them over the edge. Does anyone (besides Barnes & Noble execs) really believe this to be the case?