The great and the good of the book industry came together last night for The Bookseller Industry Awards. FutureBook sponsored the digital innovation award with the shortlist made up our innovation awards announced in March.

I'm delighted that the winner, chosen from an extremely strong shortlist, was the Solar System for iPad app. Developed by Faber & Faber in collaboration with Touch Press and author Marcus Chown.

This highly ambitious app has earned acclaim around the world, not least from Steve Jobs himself who used it to showcase the iPad2's educational credentials during the tablet's launch. 

The app is impressive on many levels:

- It earned back its costs in four weeks and two days

- Sales have now exceeded 40,000 units

- It reached #3 Top Grossing in the US, all categories, and #2 Top Grossing in the UK

- The coffee-table book edition will be published in the US and UK this autumn

- The Japanese edition of the app is almost ready and nearing release. The translator Hiroshi Itokawa is the nephew of the great Japanese space engineer Hideo Itokawa, for whom an asteroid featured in the app is named

- A German edition is in the pipeline behind the Japanese version

An ambition to be admired and a very worthy winner. On winning the award, author Marcus Chown said, 'As an author, I usually have total control over what I do. So working with a large team of people - editors, designers, programmers etc - was a completely new experience. However, it was a really joyful experience. I am so pleased with what we managed to create, and that now all the hard work of everyone on the team has been recognised.'

And Max Whitby of Touch Press said, 'the partnership between Faber and Touch Press has been enjoyable, rewarding and creatively exciting.  We really appreciate this recognition for Solar System from our peers in the industry.  Now we hope that our next release The Waste Land - will confirm what we can achieve together.'

Faber has shown that with a passion and a great collaborative team, a commercially succesful (book-based) app is possible. They seem to have the Midas touch with their digital books, recently receiving a Bafta nomination for their Malcolm Tucker: The Missing iPhone app.

I'm sure other publishers are keeping their eyes firmly on Faber's next digital move. 

Congratulations to Faber's head of digital Henry Volans.