If your holiday gift wish list includes an e-reader, you’d better hope your secret Santa is reading this right now if he or she likes a bargain.

Barnes & Noble revealed it has a real Black Friday (News - Alert) door buster in store—literally because this isn’t an online offer—planned for its Nook Simple Touch e-reader. The merchant said on Wednesday that it will be offering the Nook Simple Touch for $20 less than its regular price of $99 for this Friday, November 25th only.

Los Angeles Times writer Nathan Olivarez-Giles said the Nook Simple Touch that is  being offered at this price on Black Friday will be unique in that it will have white trim instead of the usual bluish gray trim, although it will be the same as the regularly offered $99 product in all other respects.

For example, Barnes & Noble’s promo for the Nook Simple Touch will be selling the day after Thanksgiving for $79 says it has a six-inch touchscreen and Barnes & Noble claims it is 25 percent faster than other e-readers, allowing readers to quickly flip pages, browse and download book in less than 10 seconds via WiFi (News - Alert).

Other features that typically concern consumers of e-readers, such as battery life and screen readability have been addressed by this product, with Barnes & Noble saying it has the longest battery life of any e-reader— typically two months—and it employs what the retailer calls an E Ink® display that uses its proprietary Best-Text Technology™ designed to enhance the sharpness of user-selectable fonts, the size of which can also be increased for easier reading.

The Nook Simple Touch bookstore contains more 2.5 million titles, 1,000 of which can be stored on the device within its 7.48-ounce housing that stands 6.5 inches high and five inches wide and is contoured for comfortable reading.  It can also be personalized with pictures on the “cover” screen saver and users can organize books, magazines and newspapers on electronic “shelves.”

WiFi access is free at Barnes & Noble stores and at 24,000 AT&T (News - Alert) hotspots, according to the Barnes & Noble promo, and the reader itself is free of advertisements.

The price of the Nook Simple Touch on Friday could put a damper on its competitor’s e-reader sales on what is typically the busiest shopping day of the year. Amazon’s basic Kindle e-reader, which does not sport a touchscreen and “treats” readers to advertisements on its “cover” screen saver, retails for $79. To get a Kindle with touchscreen technology, you have to spend $99 and to get rid of the ads in addition to the touchscreen, you can add another $40 to the proposition.

Best advice—if you’re hoping for an e-reader to be slipped into your Christmas stocking (or hidden with your Hanukah gilt) this year, make sure someone gets to a Barnes & Noble store early on Friday.  

In other news, TMCnet recently reported “The world's largest online retailer, Amazon recently announced a library lending program for many ebooks. The program will allow Kindle owners who subscribe to Prime to read one book at a time for free, with no due dates, up to a maximum of one title per month.”