Oil pan to timing cover seal

My motor has had an oil leak for a long time. I mostly ignore it because I am changing motors this winter. I decided to drop in a new cam to liven it up in the mean time. When I got the timing cover off and pulled off the timing cover to oil pan seal, i was a little shocked. The one I took out was all rippled and beat up like it wasn't installed properly. I understand how that could happen because I fought to get mine to stay in place for over an hour. It kept wanting to push back into the oil pan even though the rubber nubs were still in place and supposed to be holding it tight. I double, triple, and quadruple checked the nubs were holding. I lubed the seal. I tried multiple angles to install the timing cover. The damn thing just kept sliding back over the edge into the oil pan. I even went so far as to buy another timing set (and I was using Fel-Pro) to see if it would be different. It wasn't. I finally managed to get the timing cover installed with the seal in place.
My question is, so I will know in the future, is there some trick to installing the seal or the cover so everything stays in place?