diff --git a/bin/release.sh b/bin/release.sh
index 09d12c4c..0887fabf 100755
--- a/bin/release.sh
+++ b/bin/release.sh
@@ -11,10 +11,26 @@ set -o pipefail
 IFS=$'\n'
 
 DIR="$( cd "$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" >/dev/null 2>&1 && cd .. && pwd )"
+VERSION_FILE="$DIR/archivebox/VERSION"
+
+function bump_semver {
+    echo "$1" | awk -F. '{$NF = $NF + 1;} 1' | sed 's/ /./g'
+}
 
 source "$DIR/.venv/bin/activate"
 cd "$DIR"
 
+OLD_VERSION="$(cat "$VERSION_FILE")"
+NEW_VERSION="$(bump_semver "$OLD_VERSION")"
+
+if [ -z "$(git status --porcelain)" ]; then 
+    echo "[*] Bumping VERSION from $OLD_VERSION to $NEW_VERSION"
+    echo "$NEW_VERSION" > "$VERSION_FILE"
+else
+    echo "[X] Commit your changes and make sure the Git state is clean before proceeding."
+    exit 4
+fi
+
 echo "[*] Fetching latest docs version"
 cd "$DIR/docs"
 git pull
@@ -23,12 +39,6 @@ echo "[*] Cleaning up build dirs"
 cd "$DIR"
 rm -Rf build dist
 
-echo "[*] Bumping VERSION number"
-nano "$DIR/archivebox/VERSION"
-
-echo "[*] Building sdist and bdist_wheel"
-python3 setup.py sdist bdist_wheel
-
 echo "[*] Building sdist and bdist_wheel"
 python3 setup.py sdist bdist_wheel
 
@@ -38,4 +48,4 @@ python3 -m twine upload --repository testpypi dist/*
 echo "[^] Uploading to pypi.org"
 python3 -m twine upload --repository pypi dist/*
 
-echo "[√] Done. Now at version $(cat "$DIR/archivebox/VERSION")"
+echo "[√] Done. Published version v$NEW_VERSION"