I have been using mentioned townsfolk’s release plugin, but it is not actively developed anymore with a few open issues.
Recently I have found Axion release plugin which doesn’t use separate file to keep current version, but uses Git commits and tags to determine it. It simplifies releasing process and fits in Continuous Delivery trend. What is also very important the author is very responsible.
In addition to the README file nice description can be found on their blog.
The plugin can be used together with maven-publish, bintray or any other publishing plugin to push artifacts into remote artifacts repository.