diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 08b5515..2568f2b 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -3,12 +3,29 @@ import pathlib
 
 PACKAGE = "qibotn"
 
-HERE = pathlib.Path(__file__).parent
-LONG_DESCRIPTION = (HERE / "README.md").read_text(encoding="utf-8")
+
+# Returns the qibotn version
+def get_version():
+    """ Gets the version from the package's __init__ file
+    if there is some problem, let it happily fail """
+    VERSIONFILE = os.path.join("src", PACKAGE, "__init__.py")
+    initfile_lines = open(VERSIONFILE, "rt").readlines()
+    VSRE = r"^__version__ = ['\"]([^'\"]*)['\"]"
+    for line in initfile_lines:
+        mo = re.search(VSRE, line, re.M)
+        if mo:
+            return mo.group(1)
+
+
+# load long description from README
+this_directory = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__))
+with open(os.path.join(this_directory, "README.md"), encoding="utf-8") as f:
+    long_description = f.read()
+
 
 setup(
     name="qibotn",
-    version="0.0.1",
+    version=get_version(),
     description="A tensor-network translation module for quantum computing",
     author="The Qibo team",
     author_email="",
@@ -39,6 +56,6 @@ setup(
         ],
     },
     python_requires=">=3.7.0",
-    long_description=LONG_DESCRIPTION,
-    long_description_content_type="text/markdown",
+    long_description=long_description,
+    long_description_content_type='text/markdown',
 )
diff --git a/src/qibotn/__init__.py b/src/qibotn/__init__.py
index f102a9c..b1596d1 100644
--- a/src/qibotn/__init__.py
+++ b/src/qibotn/__init__.py
@@ -1 +1 @@
-__version__ = "0.0.1"
+__version__ = "0.0.1.dev0"
\ No newline at end of file