diff --git a/MANIFEST.in b/MANIFEST.in
index 6ad42f1df0dffe02646ce801d9228356071b50c4..d439f861b562d4f2a0fb6c5155770c3a20dab4f4 100644
--- a/MANIFEST.in
+++ b/MANIFEST.in
@@ -1,6 +1,4 @@
-include README.rst
-include bootstrap.py
-include buildout.cfg
+include README.rst bootstrap.py buildout.cfg version.txt
 recursive-include doc *.rst *.png conf.py
 recursive-include bob/example/faceverify/data *.hdf5
 
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 352edfe5a9109509aed158de68ab178fe2d3f098..82756c58aca041a567210316a99d22cfcfc878b4 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -21,6 +21,9 @@
 
 from setuptools import setup, find_packages
 
+# Define package version
+version = open("version.txt").read().rstrip()
+
 # The only thing we do in this file is to call the setup() function with all
 # parameters that define our package.
 setup(
@@ -28,7 +31,7 @@ setup(
     # This is the basic information about your project. Modify all this
     # information before releasing code publicly.
     name='bob.example.faceverify',
-    version='2.0.0a0',
+    version=version,
     description='Example for using Bob to create three distinct face verification systems',
     url='http://pypi.python.org/pypi/bob.example.faceverify',
     license='GPLv3',
diff --git a/version.txt b/version.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..82d45615df23a942b7d374ee020d3b4fbdf53939
--- /dev/null
+++ b/version.txt
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+2.0.0a3