diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 44fd59ce55e779f29f889c67286f670a3153eb56..d3f725a5637638de752a5eab7fd427769ea7da35 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -11,7 +11,8 @@ snakehouse
 [![License](https://img.shields.io/pypi/l/snakehouse)](https://github.com/smok-serwis/snakehouse)
 
 snakehouse is a tool to pack mutiple .pyx files
-into a single extension.
+into a single extension so that they are importable as separate
+Python modules inside Python.
 
 Inspired by [this StackOverflow discussion](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30157363/collapse-multiple-submodules-to-one-cython-extension).
 
diff --git a/snakehouse/__init__.py b/snakehouse/__init__.py
index 7b3277b74bb0cf8e0c1573a48631da7c5b1cfa5f..d3c1ec2c0cbd8fcfa5228a79946abaddbb83b161 100644
--- a/snakehouse/__init__.py
+++ b/snakehouse/__init__.py
@@ -4,4 +4,7 @@ from .multibuild import Multibuild, find_all
 from .faster_builds import monkey_patch_parallel_compilation
 from .requirements import read_requirements_txt, find_c, find_pyx_and_c, find_pyx
 
-__version__ = pkg_resources.require('snakehouse')[0].version
+try:
+    __version__ = pkg_resources.require('snakehouse')[0].version
+except pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound:
+    __version__ = '1.6a2'