How difficult a plant is to clone definitely depends on the strain, and even then until you figure out a good technique it can be hard as hell. I finally broke down and built a bubble cloner and on one of my strains I can get roots in 3 days and they are more than halfway into flowering, another strain I'm lucky if 5/10 root.
I do not shave the sides, but I do shave the bottom set of leaves even with the stem and this is where the roots form, like the technique at
http://www.weedfarmer.com/cannabis/cuttings.php
If your cuttings are dying after one day most likely they are not getting enough humidity, but regardless if you plan on doing cloning on a regular basis I would highly suggest building a cloner, its cheap and easy to do and it works great.