diff --git a/pre_publish.sh b/pre_publish.sh
index ee8e51cda6b..aca17b968a8 100755
--- a/pre_publish.sh
+++ b/pre_publish.sh
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ set -e
 
 ./util/update_lints.py
 
-git status --short | sort | grep -v README.md | grep -v helper.txt > helper.txt
+git status --short | sort | grep -v README.md | grep -v helper.txt | sort > helper.txt
 
 # abort if the files differ
 diff "publish.files" "helper.txt"
diff --git a/publish.files b/publish.files
index f39a07c9142..9ee50447f99 100644
--- a/publish.files
+++ b/publish.files
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
- M CHANGELOG.md
  M Cargo.toml
+ M CHANGELOG.md
  M clippy_lints/Cargo.toml