Barnes & Noble (B&N) said in a Thursday announcement that its dedicated Nook e-reader will hit the 2,500 of the Wal-Mart Super Centers on October 24. The move, which will also include the online availability of Nook from Wal-Mart website, will mark the expansion of the presence of B&N’s e-reader.

At present, the Nook is available at the Barnes & Noble locations, on BN. com, and at Best Buy stores and its Web site.

Noting that “the world's largest bookseller and the world's largest retailer are bringing e-reading to the masses,” the B&N CEO William Lynch told the Wall Street Journal that Wal-Mart will sell both the 149 Wi-Fi-only version of the Nook as well as the $200 3G/Wi-Fi model.

Incidentally, Wal-Mart has also recently started selling all the six versions of the Apple iPad, which is a Nook competitor along with the Amazon Kindle.

With the recent expansion of availability of the e-readers and the iPad, retailers are looking towards a major holiday season especially for the e-readers, whose price and ranged have changed substantially over the last one year.

Saying that the Wal-Mart customer is a “slightly different demographic” than at B&N, Lynch said that bringing the Nook to Wal-Mart will give B&N the access to “a customer who we think grows the base of Nook customers.”