diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 040f57c..ad83af9 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@
 !example-*.yml
 !.*.yml
 
-# Ignore automatically generated version for normal commits. This is bumped manually when needed.
+# Automatically generated by setup.py
 __init__.py
 
 env/
diff --git a/VERSION b/VERSION
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ea5e9d3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/VERSION
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+0.9-beta1
diff --git a/__init__.py b/__init__.py
deleted file mode 100644
index e2c1666..0000000
--- a/__init__.py
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-__version__ = '0.9-beta1'
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 8961eec..6bc7665 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -10,8 +10,9 @@ try:
     version = subprocess.check_output(['git', 'describe', '--tags']).decode('utf-8').strip()
 except Exception as e:
     print('ERROR: Failed to get version from "git describe --tags": %s: %s' % (type(e).__name__, e))
-    from __init__ import __version__ as fallback_version
 
+    with open('VERSION') as f:
+        fallback_version = f.read().strip()
     print('Using fallback version of %r.' % fallback_version)
     version = fallback_version