Today’s word of the day over at Urban Dictionary is tree-book.

Defined as “a book printed on dead trees, i.e. paper, as opposed to an e-book, which only exists electronically,” the word tree-book is quite timely this week as publishers scramble to get editions ready for inclusion on the iPad. With much hype around the US launch date next week, will the iPad have the power to change the way we consume literature so much that e-books become the norm and the word tree-book becomes how we describe paper-bound books?

For publisher Penguin, tree-books make up about 96 per cent of their sales. They expect e-book sales to more than double this year, to 10 per cent, but I think e-book sales, or atleast readership, might jump higher.

Ahead of the launch, it appears that the Apple iBookstore is set to stock 30,000 free e-books for iPad users. Kindle has also launched their app, Kindle for Mac, which has a tablet version that will be compatible with the iPad, bringing a paid-for catalogue of 450,000 e-books to the device.

April will be an interesting month for both books and print media. Is the iPad all hype, or are things about to change? If so, will it be change for the better?

Photo by Flickr user babblingdweeb, licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Hattip @Laermer