diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 7e72328b6197ad3cb3e44169da2c548072ddfb0e..6aa7966e796590eba735bd1101c447c11dea578f 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -13,3 +13,6 @@ generated
 artifacts
 *.d.mk
 content/archived-Einführung-in-die-politische-Geschichte-Chinas
+templates
+/*.apkg
+NOTICE
diff --git a/make/changelogs.mk b/make/changelogs.mk
index 2c69afd811c820920a9dff5dba403c029dcc2295..9a6121d76453386c2ccc9770ae3be38cb0011198 100644
--- a/make/changelogs.mk
+++ b/make/changelogs.mk
@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ GIT_VERSION_RANGES = $(join \
 # files that will change if we fetch new tags => if anything is changed,
 # we rebuild all changelogs (in case the history was rewritten somehow)
 # deferred in case we do a fetch first
-GIT_TAG_FILES = $(wildcard $(and $(GIT_DIR),$(GIT_DIR)/).git/refs/tags/*) $(and $(GIT_DIR),$(GIT_DIR)/).git/packed-refs
+GIT_TAG_FILES = $(wildcard $(or $(GIT_DIR),.git)/refs/tags/*) $(or $(GIT_DIR),.git)/packed-refs
 VER_CHANGELOGS_MARKDOWN := $(foreach VER,$(GIT_VERSIONS), \
 	$(BUILD_PREFIX)CHANGELOG-$(VER).md)
 VER_CHANGELOGS_HTML := $(foreach VER,$(GIT_VERSIONS), \
diff --git a/make/release.mk b/make/release.mk
index 22f8b795b6b376c21bce16e3ee08a5102f022024..daed84d6fc3d923998ff2e0a9650b84c27a6e73c 100644
--- a/make/release.mk
+++ b/make/release.mk
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 # part before the npm version in the release directory name
-RELEASE_DIR_STEM = sinologie-anki-pack
-VERSION := $(shell grep '"version":' package.json -m 1 | cut -d '"' -f 4)
+RELEASE_DIR_STEM ?= sinologie-anki-pack
+VERSION ?= $(shell grep '"version":' package.json -m 1 | cut -d '"' -f 4)
 RELEASE_DIR := $(BUILD_PREFIX)$(RELEASE_DIR_STEM)-$(VERSION)
 RELEASE_ZIP := $(RELEASE_DIR).zip