diff --git a/Lib/fontTools/__init__.py b/Lib/fontTools/__init__.py
index e001bb2fc..fc9039845 100644
--- a/Lib/fontTools/__init__.py
+++ b/Lib/fontTools/__init__.py
@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
-"""Empty __init__.py file to signal Python this directory is a package.
-(It can't be completely empty since WinZip seems to skip empty files.)
-"""
+
+
+version = "1.0b1"
+
+