Barnes & Noble is inviting developers to become involved with its Nook Developer programme, following the recent announcement of its Nook Tablet, which joins the Nook Color and Nook Simple Touch e-reader in its device line-up.

Developers can submit free or paid apps to the Nook Developer scheme, which has been around since the Nook Color arrived about a year ago. No fee is required to participate, and developers receive 70 percent of revenue.

Barnes and Noble has also partnered with cross-platform developer platform Appcelerator to boost the deployment of apps built using the Titanium platform via the Barnes & Noble digital storefront.

The book retailer says third-party developers – which include Netflix, Rovio, EA and Conde Nast – have reported “unprecedented revenue and unique methods of driving discovery and demand of their content and applications”.

A recent Evans Data survey found that Nook Apps is the top portal for Android apps in terms of revenue channels, and the second most popular Android store after Android Market in terms of downloads.

The top selling Nook apps have grossed US$100,000 during the first 30 days of availability on Nook Apps, according to Barnes & Noble.

“With the launch of our new reading and entertainment-centric Nook Tablet, we are providing even more opportunities for third-party developers and content providers to reach millions of Barnes & Noble customers and offer high-quality apps to enrich and enhance the content experience,” Claudia Romanini, the company's director of developer relations, said.

Like the Nook Color, the Nook Tablet is a 7 inch tablet that runs Android 2.2, supporting a range of apps. The Tablet adds HD movies and TV shows via the Netflix and Hulu Plus services, has twice the memory, longer battery life and is faster – it has 1GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of RAM – and is lighter than the Color. The Tablet costs US$249 compared to the Color’s US$199.