diff --git a/relik/version.py b/relik/version.py
index e542a81..7060445 100644
--- a/relik/version.py
+++ b/relik/version.py
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 _MINOR = "0"
 # On main and in a nightly release the patch should be one ahead of the last
 # released build.
-_PATCH = "7"
+_PATCH = "8"
 # This is mainly for nightly builds which have the suffix ".dev$DATE". See
 # https://semver.org/#is-v123-a-semantic-version for the semantics.
 _SUFFIX = os.environ.get("RELIK_VERSION_SUFFIX", "")
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 672455f..520d0dd 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -106,7 +106,7 @@ def fix_url_dependencies(req: str) -> str:
 with open("relik/version.py", "r") as version_file:
     exec(version_file.read(), VERSION)
 
-with open("README.md", "r") as fh:
+with open("README.md", "r", encoding="utf-8") as fh:
     long_description = fh.read()
 
 setuptools.setup(